Mums have a hard time in Hollywood.

Latest release Tully puts Charlize Theron in the role of new mum and although I haven’t seen it, the trailers look grim and frankly, exhausting.

Perhaps it will provide some refreshing insight into this much glossed-over social role: we all have one but it seems films about mums aren’t box office hits.

That was, until recently, when the Bad Moms franchise landed on screens.

It was a subversive, wild ride through suburbia, school pick-ups and parent-teacher interviews. And, it was a total hoot.

Audiences thought so, too. The films brought in more than $300 million worldwide.

Funny-woman Melissa McCarthy’s latest comedy Life of the Party tries to pile-on to the mums-on-film juggernaut.

It was written by McCarthy and her real-life husband Ben Falcone, who also directed the film and has a brief cameo role as a sympathetic Uber driver.

McCarthy steps into the role of frumpy housewife, Deanna.

In the opening scene she wears an 80s-style perm, a pastel-coloured sweatshirt emblazoned with “proud” and is farewelling her daughter, Maddie (Molly Gordon), who is off to college.

It’s clear that Maddie has been the focus of much of Deanna’s adult life.

In fact, as Deanna and her husband Dan (Matt Walsh of Veep fame) drive away from their daughter’s college sorority house, Dan breaks the news that he wants a divorce.

The couple had been planning an Italian holiday together but it soon emerges that Dan is still going on the trip.

Instead of wife Deanna, he is taking his new love interest, a bitchy real estate agent named Marcie (Julie Bowen).

As Deanna picks herself up off the floor, she is surrounded by friends and family.

Cue an excellently oddball Jacki Weaver as Deanna’s grey-haired mum Sandy, and the whacky Stephen Root as dad, Mike.

Maya Rudolf, of Saturday Night Live fame, is wonderful as Deanna’s best friend Christine.

She’s a hilarious cheerleader throughout divorce mediation proceedings, a squash/drinking buddy and basically the kind of best friend we’d all like to have.

Her scenes with husband Frank (Damon Jones) throughout the film are really funny.

Deanna decides to go back to college and finish her degree so she can fulfil her dream of becoming an archeologist.

It emerges that she dropped out of her final year when she became pregnant with daughter, Maddie.

Maddie is initially less-than-pleased with her mum’s plan to return to college but ultimately comes around, along with her gang of girlfriends.

What follows is a makeover, a series of hilarious social encounters and a dance-off.

Deanna’s reawakening has college boy Jack (Luke Benward) falling head-over-heels for her.

Similarly, college professor and a former classmate, played by Chris Parnell, hangs off her every bad dad-joke.

When Dan announces his pending nuptials with Marcie, things come to a hilarious head and pop songstress, Christina Aguilera, helps to save the day.

Life of the Party is silly, college-grade fun.