Matt Damon Has a Gift for Your Mom

As he introduced Saturday Night Live’s annual Mother’s Day show last night, Matt Damon had a confession to make. This year, he was sad to say, the cast’s moms weren’t at 30 Rock to kick things off with a dose of warm fuzzies. Instead, he offered a service to every panicked child in the audience who’d made it to the night before Mother’s Day without buying their mom a gift: a “personal,” direct-to-camera greeting that not only flattered its recipient’s looks but also reminded them that they deserved a night out. Why not head to the theater—perhaps to see the actor’s upcoming film, The Odyssey, a trailer for which conveniently played in the commercial break following Damon’s monologue.In a way, he was offering a culture-wide apology for an unfortunate tendency: to overlook the one day a year dedicated to recognizing our moms and the often taken-for-granted toil of motherhood. But what if there were a way to make up for all those forgotten Mother’s Days? An everlasting thank-you card fulfilling the wishes of any mom who may be feeling unappreciated, exhausted, or neglected? Maybe one that comes with goo-goo eyes from Matt Damon?That’s what “Mom: The Movie” is for. In the spoof of gentle, soft, focused crowd pleasers, SNL’s Ashley Padilla channeled the kind of maternal figure she’s honed over two seasons on the show—culturally out of touch, relentlessly cheerful, and covered in statement accessories. The central joke: Only in the movies would a family indulge its matriarch’s basic desires for companionship, sensitivity, and praise. More than that, she was the mom who’d gotten everything she’d ever wanted: Her adult kids had moved back into her house, two grandchildren were on the way, and she was Mrs. Matt Damon—Rhonda Damon, to be exact. Yet funny as it was, the “story by moms, for moms” had a twinge of sadness at its core. The movie-trailer framing and Padilla’s exaggerated reactions and line readings kept the sketch in the realm of comedy. But just as much of its hum