Stepmom

Stepmom (1998) is a family drama from director Chris Columbus you can watch online on iFILM. Two women share one role in the lives of the same two kids, and neither can stand the other.

Jackie has raised ten-year-old Anna and six-year-old Ben since her divorce, used to being the only fixed point in their world. Isabel is a young New York photographer, the new girlfriend of their father Luke, and the children treat her like an intruder. She tries too hard, gets the house rules wrong, fumbles the small stuff, while Jackie shows no interest in giving up ground. Then comes the diagnosis: Jackie is terminally ill, and both women have to learn to trust the rival each of them resented. Julia Roberts plays Isabel, Susan Sarandon plays Jackie, with Ed Harris as the father and a young Jena Malone as Anna.

Columbus made this right after Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, returning to the wiring of a family but with the jokes dialed down. John Williams wrote the score, threading a quiet ache through the whole thing. It is a story about how two mothers' hostility slowly turns into something close to respect. Stream Stepmom (1998) online on iFILM.