Susan Sarandon's Mother Roles
If you're a young actress in Hollywood, then odds are that Susan Sarandon has played your mom at some point. Just kidding. But here's a list of Sarandon's most memorable maternal roles, from oldest to most recent, and all the young actresses who've played her daughters.
Pretty Baby (1978), Brooke Shields, 12. Set in 1917 New Orleans, the film centers around Violet (Brooke) coming-of-age in a whore-house where her mother Hattie (Sarandon) works as a prostitute. Their relationship, like the film itself, lacks much depth; the two get along well enough but have little emotional connection. Hattie tells her customers that Violet is her little sister, and she hardly seems to care when her daughter's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder. At the end of the movie, after she marries and settles down, Hattie seems ready to step up and act like a mother, but she has been so distant from Violet throughout the film that it feels forced and unbelievable. The portion of Brooke's Inside the Actors Studio interview about Pretty Baby is here.
Hattie readies for a photograph as Violet looks on
Little Women (1994), Kirsten Dunst, 11. Based on the classic book, this film follows the four daughters of the March family (Kirsten plays the youngest one) from girlhood to adulthood in post-Civil War America. Their mother Abigail (Sarandon) is outspoken and has lots of new-fangled ideas (the neighbors are shocked to hear that she disapproves of girls wearing corsets). While her daughters are sometimes embarrassed by her, she maintains close, loving relationships with all of them throughout. She often comes across as so unrealistically perfect and wise -- "I so wish I could give my girls a just world. I know you'll work to make it a better place." -- that she could be auditioning for Mother Teresa.
Abigail reads her daughter a letter from their father, away at war
Stepmom (1998), Jena Malone, 12. In this tearjerker chick-flick, Jackie (Sarandon) is a loving, traditional mother who feels threatened when the young, hip Isabel (Julia Roberts, August: Osage County) becomes her children's stepmom. Her daughter Anna (Jena) feels that to be loyal to Jackie, she must act like a brat to Isabel. When Isabel gives Anna a puppy in attempt to win her over, Anna suggests naming it Isabel because, she says, it smells like her. (In Anna's defense, she has a bad case of growing pains and is still hurting from her parents' divorce.) But when Jackie is diagnosed with a terminal illness, she and Anna both learn to love Isabel and accept that she'll be the mother figure in Anna's life.
Anna and Jackie in one of too many emotional scenes
Anywhere But Here (1999), Natalie Portman, 16. The film opens as eccentric Adele (Sarandon) is moving from Wisconsin to Los Angeles -- and dragging her teenage daughter Ann (Natalie) with her. When Ann acts bratty during the car ride, Adele momentarily leaves her on the side of the road in the desert. Over the next four years, their complex relationship evolves as they face evictions, failed relationships, and family tragedies. The film can be frustrating, as Ann and Adele's actions sometimes make little sense. When Ann moves away to college at the end, they have established only a fragile peace, accepting, but not fully understanding, one another.
Ann and Adele watching a sunrise together
The Lovely Bones (2009), Saoirse Ronan, 13. This film takes on a heavy subject: 14-year-old Susie (Saoirse) is abducted and murdered early on, and she then watches from heaven as her family struggles to cope and move on. Susie and her Grandma Lynn (Sarandon) have only one scene together before she is murdered, in which Lynn perceptively realizes that she has a crush on a boy. After her death, Lynn moves in with the family, and the film uses her a poor, misplaced tool for comic relief. A pointless song montage of Lynn having fun with Susie's siblings is shockingly out-of-place and almost offensive, the worst part of the whole film.
Susie and Lynn boy-watching in a library
For screencaps and more in-depth reviews, visit Young Actress Reviews: Pretty Baby, Little Women, Stepmom, Anywhere But Here, and The Lovely Bones.