| The composer can mistake cuteness for cleverness, and like any unabashed sentimentalist, he's often a stone's throw from mawkishness. |
| Perhaps the mawkishness and jingoism of the popular culture prevailing in those days is as distasteful as the shallowness of our own. |
| Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own affectingly hymns the singer's late father, pulling back from mawkishness. |
| It could easily have degenerated into dreadful mawkishness but self-deprecating humour helped save the day. |
| Still, if you compare the film with other such chick flicks, it's jauntily efficient, with enough waspish one-liners to offset the mawkishness. |
| What follows from here is unbridled mawkishness interrupted by some slapstick comedy. |
