Stepmothers have been getting a bad rap for centuries — though, to be fair, for a while that reputation was on the earned end of the spectrum. Once upon a time, when widowers took new wives, women were forced into competition with preexisting children for resources, attention, and potential inheritance. Not a good recipe for happy blended family, that's for sure.Thankfully, times have changed, and it's actually possible to conceive of a stepparent who isn't necessarily wicked, or maybe is wicked but in a Boston way . But the evil-stepmom trope still rears its head in popular culture front time to time, a variation on a theme that once belonged primarily to the Brothers Grimm.One example? The 1998 movie Stepmom, in which Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts compete for the love and attention of two kids, and along the way, come to develop a new respect for each other. Despite the unimaginative title, it's actually a really great story, and not just because of its heartwarming, candy-coated outer shell.Here's the basic plot: Jackie (Sarandon) is somewhat amicably divorced from Luke (Ed Harris). They have two kids, Anna and Ben. Luke falls head over heels for a chic fashion photographer, Isabel (Roberts), who is struggling to get the kids to accept her new role in their lives. Jackie doesn't want the kids to befriend Isabel and constantly critiques Isabel's ability to connect with and take care of the children — that is, until Jackie is diagnosed with terminal cancer and must consider the part that Isabel will play in Anna and Ben's lives after she is gone.It's a bittersweet movie, mostly because of the cancer diagnosis, which pops up about three-quarters of the way through. Despite the fact that it's a warm-your-heart, grab-your-tissues kind of family film, Stepmom is also refreshingly modern in its take on Isabel: a career woman who doesn't hide the fact that she never wanted children herself, though she's game to take them on if they're part of a package deal. In fact, her careerism is one of the things that Jackie — a former publisher who became a stay-at-home mom — is so critical toward. Ultimately, Jackie seems to recognize that for all of Isabel's flaws, she is a good role model for Anna precisely because she has been so focused on pursuing her professional passions.Put another way: Stepmom isn't (just) a movie about two women who set aside their differences to do what's best for the children. It's a movie about two very different women who come to motherhood in two very different ways. They each navigate their own parenting journeys with different handicaps and advantages, while still trying to stay true to their own course. It's also about two people recognizing where their limitations begin and end — that you just can't fix a problem you would give anything to solve. And sometimes, you just have to learn to live with that fact or let it go.