Well, when someone drowns Mona (Bette Midler), it's almost a cause for celebration in the quiet, upstate New York town of Verplanck, whose one claim to fame – except Mona Dearly – is that it's a hotbed of Yugos. Yugos are cars.
Mona has driven into the Hudson in her son's Yugo, and it wasn't an accident – the brake lines had been cut, which is discovered by police chief Wyatt Rash, (played by a deadpan Danny DeVito).
It turns out that nobody seems to care, least of all her half-wit son Jeff (Marcus Thomas) who, upon hearing the news, says, "What was she doing in my car?" This sets the movie's pace.
Told in a series of flashbacks of the fiery and frequently violent Mona, we soon learn why her family, and most of the town doesn't really miss her, but it doesn't go deep enough into Mona's character to get a really good handle on what made Mona so mean, according to some reviews, though the film certainly has its high water marks.
For one, a fine supporting cast including Rona (Jamie Lee Curtis) as the waitress having a fling with Mona's philandering husband Phil (William Fichtner). Then there's landscaper Bobby Calzone (Casey Affleck) who employs Jeff, whom he had been planning to fire before Mona's demise, and Ellie (Neve Campbell), Chief Wyatt's daughter, whom Bobby is planning to marry.
All of this could be a whole lot funnier in different hands, according to one reviewer who suggested the Cone Brothers (of Fargo fame), or the Marx Brothers, or the Wright Brothers, or the Menendez brothers. Whatever.
Rated PG for some thematic elements, language, brief sexuality.
It is playing at Market Square East.