Expecting Mary (2010)

How’s this for a cast? Elliott Gould, Linda Gray, Lainie Kazan, Della Reese, Gene Simmons, Fred Willard, Cybill Shepherd, Cloris Leachman, and Olesya Rulin. If any of those names mean anything to you, the combination has to drum up a little curiosity as to what kind of movie this could possibly be. That’s what happened to me when I ran across Expecting Mary on the Tubi streaming service this past weekend. Billed as a “family” movie about a pregnant teen runaway who finds the real meaning of family, love, and sacrifice in a trailer park in New Mexico, I had to watch it. Not because I was interested in the plot. No, I just had to see what the filmmakers would do with this cast.

Olesya Rubin (High School Musical) plays Mary, the aforementioned teen runaway. Eight months pregnant, she’s hitchhiked her way from New York City to New Mexico on her way to see her father (Gene Simmons) in Los Angeles. She’s picked up by a kindly, polka-loving trucker named Horace (Elliott Gould,) who takes her to an Indian casino to get something to eat. He introduces her to Darnella Dare (Linda Gray,) his showgirl girlfriend, and Lillian (Lainie Kazan,) the casino’s owner. And, then he drops dead from a heart-attack.

Stranded in New Mexico, Mary spends the night at Darnella’s place in a trailer park. While there, she tells Darnella the full story about how her mother (Cybill Shepherd) forced her to go to boarding school and, when she got pregnant, wanted her to have an abortion. She wants to go to her father’s house because he’s in a rock band and he’ll understand why she wants to keep the baby. Darnella tries to delay Mary from leaving so she can arrange a funeral for Horace.

Of course, Mary eventually goes on to visit her father, becomes disappointed in his reaction, and returns to the trailer park. Over the span of a month, Darnella and her quirky friends teach her everything about how to love, live, and forgive that her real parents couldn’t in sixteen years.

Cloris Leachman shows up as Darnella’s friend, Annie, a shotgun-toting old lady who raises pigs at her pig-shaped trailer next-door. Della Reese plays Mrs. Dorkus, the grumpy trailer park owner. Fred Willard makes a brief appearance as Jerry Zee, Darnella’s agent. Every character — including Mary’s parents and stepfather — eventually reveals a heart of gold no matter how ill-mannered they initially appeared on the outside.

Sadly, though, Dan Gordon (Wyatt Earp), who wrote and directed this extremely oddball movie, doesn’t do humor very well. The comedy falls flat, the drama is predictably overwrought, and the intended-to-be heartfelt moments are just plain sappy. The performances, aside from Linda Gray and Olesya Rulin, lack any kind of feeling. The late, great Fred Willard manages to deliver the only genuine laughs in the movie on the strength of his comedic timing alone. Had anyone else played his character’s initial scene, I doubt it would have worked anywhere near as well. Every scene feels like it was done in one or two takes. (It wasn’t until after I’d written this review that I found out that the entire movie was filmed in 18 days. So, maybe I was right.)

Expecting Mary has a pro-life slant to it that didn’t bother me in the slightest. However, there’s a scene near the end that takes religious symbolism so far over-the-top that I honestly didn’t know if it was trying to be funny or serious. If the comedic parts of your movie aren’t recognizable as parody or part of a faith-based agenda, you might have a poorly written script or a badly directed film. Or both. I suspect the latter.