In the quiet town of Iris Glen, Harper (Christina Starbuck) lives with her husband, Richard (Reed Birney), and her adult child, Nevada (Kelsey Lynn Stokes). Her oldest child works abroad in Ukraine, and another one of her children died of cancer at a very young age. She runs for town mayor after just being released from jail for conspiring to murder an abortionist, and, on top of that, she gets diagnosed with breast cancer. Richard is imminently going to prison for statutory rape while Nevada has issues of her own to cope with when she dates a creep, Otto (Eli Percy), who had been stalking her.

      Dysfunctional family movies if they're emotionally engaging and believable. Mad Women lacks both essential qualities despite solid performances from everyone onscreen. Writer/director Jeff Lipsky combines drama, dark comedy, shock value and a smidgen of romance in a way that lacks fluidity, vitality and panache. Although it's quite refreshing to see a film that doesn't have dinosaurs, zombies or any of the Hollywood cliches that pass for "entertainment", Mad Women does gets quite repetitive and dull while too many scenes overstay their welcome. It's alright that none of the characters are particularly likable or relatable for that matter---they're all very flawed which usually makes them more interesting. If only the dialogue weren't so clunky and stilted, perhaps they would actually come to life.

      Shock value in dysfunctional dramedies have been done better before (see Todd Solondz's Happiness, for instance), but here it's poorly integrated. Lipsky should be commended, though, for dealing with lots of heavy issues rarely explored in American cinema nowadays, but he doesn't go dig deep enough. The film ultimately bites off more than it can chew. At a running time of 2 hours and 11 minutes, Mad Women feels undercooked, lackluster and overlong.