Cert 15 Stars 3

It’s sex, drag and rock and roll in this sentimental and predictable culture clash comedy which challenges ideas of what it takes to be a real man in the modern world.

Australian veteran actress Jackie Weaver stars as Maybelline, a gun-toting straight-talking christian choir mistress from Texas, who having been estranged from her gay son unexpectedly inherits his failing drag bar.

She surprises herself – but not us watching – when to the horror of her closed-minded husband and friends she decides to save the place by running it herself.

Maybelline is unperturbed by the hard partying thrust upon her by the bitchy cross-dressing divas or their ribald humour and risque outfits, probably because this is a fairly tame affair which never comes close to stealing Kathleen Turner’s crown as the queen of on-screen drag acts, whose sequined and feather-boa’d stage act on TV’s Friends, this owes a debt.

With a message of love and tolerance Stage Mother is content to be a love letter to the free-thinking attitudes and beauty of San Francisco, and a celebration re-inventing yourself no matter your age.