Entertainment

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'Otherhood' Is All About Moms With Boundary Issues —So, Relatable

While Netflix's mom-com Wine Country boasted a deep bench of Emmy winners, its next attempt at the genre stars three Oscar nominees. The Otherhood cast stars Felicity Huffman, Angela Bassett, and Patricia Arquette as three recent empty-nesters trying to navigate life after kids. Fed up with their three adult sons basically ignoring them in lieu of their new adult lives — they don't even bother texting on Mother's Day — the moms stage a surprise visit to ambush them. And just to drive home this nightmare scenario, the trio of moms don't bother booking themselves hotels; instead, they invite themselves to crash at their sons' apartments, apparently forgetting how gross boys are? Anyway, it doesn't go very well.

But far from being a film about moms with boundary issues (which they definitely are, but that's not the point), Otherhood explores how necessary it is for mothers to reclaim their identities through a relationship with themselves after their kids grow up. Bassett described having adult kids as "essentially being broken up with little by little by little — they're just not into you anymore" in an interview with NPR ahead of the film's release. So instead of forcing a connection with their kids, the moms actually learn how to reconnect to themselves in their next phase of life. Here's more on the cast and where else you might have seen them.

Patricia Arquette

Linda Kallerus/Netflix

Fresh off critically acclaimed turns in true crime miniseries The Act and Escape at Dannemora, Arquette lightens the mood in this project playing Gillian Lieberman. Of the three sons in the story, her son Daniel, played by Wolf of Wall Street's Jake Hoffman, is the messy one who still hasn't quite gotten his life together — to say nothing of his slightly terrifying apartment. Arquette scored an Academy Award in 2015 for Boyhood, but she's a two-time Golden Globe winner and an Emmy winner, too.

Angela Bassett

Bassett plays Carol, a widow who has completely lost her identity within the loss of her husband and the "loss" of her son, Matt, played by Once Upon a Time alum Sinqua Walls. Matt has gone on to become a successful art director since moving to New York, but Carol still has some soul-searching to do to figure out who she is outside of her son. Bassett was nominated for an Academy Award in 1994 for playing Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It, and she scored a Golden Globe for the role. She's also a five-time Emmy nominee with a decades-long film and TV career. Recent roles include stints on 9-1-1, American Horror Story, and Master of None.

Felicity Huffman

Linda Kallerus/Netflix

In Otherhood, Huffman plays Helen Halston, mom to Jake Lacy's Paul. (Lacy is probably most recognizable from his time on Girls, but he recently played Gwen Verdon's boyfriend Ron in the FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon.)

Bassett spoke out on her co-star pleading guilty for participating in this year's college admissions bribery scandal in her NPR interview. "I understand that you would throw yourself in front of a moving train for your kids — but also you're always trying to be a good example for them," she said, adding that she was glad Huffman took responsibility for her actions. Huffman is best known for her role on Desperate Housewives, but she also earned an Oscar nomination for 2005's Transamerica.

You can catch Otherhood streaming on Netflix and in select theaters beginning Aug. 2.