'Raising Helen' Pays Tribute to Moms

May 7 -- Attention, mothers: If you think you're not appreciated enough at home, you might want to go and see Garry Marshall's latest film.

In Raising Helen, the filmmaker details the struggles of parenthood through the eyes of someone who becomes a parent quite unexpectedly. Kate Hudson plays a Manhattan party girl who gets custody of three children when her sister is killed in a car accident.

The freewheeling modeling agency worker is suddenly dealing with disciplining a teenage girl, raising a young boy, and teaching a 5-year-old to tie her shoes. She gets some parenting tips from her other sister, an experienced mom played by Joan Cusack.

"It's like a love letter to single mothers because it's hard and it's everywhere," Hudson told reporters while promoting the movie in New York.

Since wrapping the movie, Hudson herself became the mother of a baby boy, Ryder Russell Robinson, with husband Chris Robinson. She says she has a lot of respect for mothers who go it alone. "I personally have a lot of single-mother girlfriends who have to keep it together."

Director Marshall said the script appealed to him because it demonstrated realistic family struggles. "My aim in life was not to necessarily make a hit. I just did two hits, Runaway Bride and The Princess Diaries. … I said, good, I can make a nice picture now," he said.

"I said I would like to make something that's closer to me. …. And since I grew up with sisters and I have daughters, both married with children," motherhood seemed like the right subject.

"I think motherhood is a very difficult job these days, so I was trying to salute parents," said Marshall.

The heart of the comedy is the tough-talking suburban mom played by Cusack. She doles out plenty of love while making sure her house is in proper order. It's not a glamorous role, but it is an important one, Cusack said.