The film opens with Arquette telling the audience that the first movie she ever saw was The Red Shoes, a movie about a neurotic ballet dancer so torn between her career and family that she throws herself in front of a train. Later in the film we learn that it was her own mother who took her to see this movie (no Disney for that family, it seems) when she was only four years old. Her mother died at 57 of cancer, but it is Arquette's opinion that what really killed her was the inability to express her art. It is unkind, but irresistible, to note that Arquette's mother's tombstone bears a Star of David, which explains why the entire documentary is one incredible guilt trip, that contrary to Arquette's belief that her mother never expressed her art, she in fact mastered the art of Jewish Motherhood. (Did she ghost write the book by Dan Greenberg, I wonder?) Giving credit where it is due, she did her job well; it seems they are all over-achievers.
Anyway, Arquette decides to probe the depths of this guilt over how she and her siblings' demands led to their mother's untimely demise, by interviewing every actress willing to talk to her. What is notable about this is finding out that if you take the scripts away from actresses they turn into inarticulate potty-mouths. What is even more surprising is seeing them having lunch in a fancy restaurant, screaming the f-word back and forth at each other, and the management never asks them to leave. Memo to all: don't go to lunch there, the patrons will make you vomit.
Anyway, Arquette decides to probe the depths of this guilt over how she and her siblings' demands led to their mother's untimely demise, by interviewing every actress willing to talk to her. What is notable about this is finding out that if you take the scripts away from actresses they turn into inarticulate potty-mouths. What is even more surprising is seeing them having lunch in a fancy restaurant, screaming the f-word back and forth at each other, and the management never asks them to leave. Memo to all: don't go to lunch there, the patrons will make you vomit.