Here's the Trailer for Two Mothers, the Film About BFFs Who Screw Each Other's Teenage Sons

By Tracie Egan Morrissey | February 14, 2013 | 9:00pm

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For her first English language film, French filmmaker Anne Fontaine (best known for 2009’s Coco Before Chanel) decided to direct an adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author and bad bitch Doris Lessing’s novella “The Grandmothers,” about two lifelong friends who carry on affairs with each other’s hunky surfer sons. Changing the title to the much younger-sounding Two Mothers probably helped attract stars Naomi Watts and Robin Wright to sign on for the title roles. But will that be the only Hollywood-friendly makeover the story received?

Lessing’s short story is about two women, Lil and Roz, and told in flashbacks (presently, they are elderly grandmothers). They became best friends when they were little girls, attended the same college, deliberately chose spouses that got along, had a double wedding, and bought houses next door to each other. Eventually, though, Roz’s husband leaves her because he always felt secondary to Lil. Shortly thereafter, Lil’s husband dies. Now both single, each woman begins to notice how hot the other one’s teenage son is, and start fucking the boys. The ladies finally decide to end the relationships when the boys (now men) are in their 30s, and encourage them to get married and have children of their own. But the fires of passion can not be squelched. The story is an uncomfortable one (as Oedipal tales often are) — about how it’s not always the best idea to fully indulge our every whim — with allusions of incest and lesbianism.