Films like ""Because I Said So"" are written, acted and shot in a vacuum. In such movies, women are front and center in every frame, the men are only around to cheat on them and to be breeding stock, mother-daughter relationships are everything and men only have parents so that girlfriends can meet them way, way too early in their relationships. Not all of these have proven to be bad, but how can one be asked to identify with characters when their world is so out of touch with the real world?
""Because"" features Diane Keaton as a dysfunctional mother trying to navigate her young daughter's dating life in the hopes of helping her daughter avoid the agony she experienced in her youth. Keaton posts an online personal ad trying to get her daughter (played by Mandy Moore) a boyfriend that Keaton deems worthy. However, while Moore dates her mother's choice, a successful architect, she also falls for a mother's worst nightmare: a professional guitarist with a child.
Keaton spent years as Woody Allen's muse and was part of some of his best films. She was also in the ""Godfather"" films and it's a blow to see her reduced to the neurotic Daphne. In ""Because I Said So,"" she channels some of the worst characteristics of Annie Hall, taking all of the brains and leaving all of the hang-ups, in her portrayal. Moore, who has also done better films, tries her best to look interested, but ultimately the film drags its actors down.
Over the course of the story, both Moore and Keaton use the phrase ""because I said so"" as advice to the other. The film almost makes them pause, hoping the line will pay off as a laugh. It never happens.
Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo co-star as Keaton's other daughters, and while both have carried projects by themselves, they seem bored in this film.
The biggest problem is not the actors, but that the film itself is artlessly crafted. Director Michael Lehmann, of ""Heathers"" fame, directs a film without subtlety. Within the first 15 minutes of the film, half of the cast and one stranger have told Diane Keaton that she has to let go and let her daughter live her own life, but after that's said the film spends another hour of Keaton running her daughter's life. In better films, the action would've taken the place of the telling and the result would be the same. The filmmakers either don't trust their film or their audience, but either way it's a mistake.
The script itself also has major problems. It feels like some situations in the film are created solely so that we can be reminded of them later. Extra credit points should be given to script writers Karen Hopkins and Jessie Nelson for finding a new euphemism for sex: ""doing the oompa loompa.""
""Because I Said So"" is forgettable and brainless and mostly without charm. It has the makings of a better film within it if it could only clean itself up and take itself a little more seriously. Behind what could be a great cast, the film lingers and suffers under inferior creation and execution. Ya-ya sisterhoods, first-wives clubs and steel magnolias around the country will be sorely disappointed when they see this movie.
