Socially-led creative agency We Are Social has taken to colouring books and pencils to publicise Roadshow’s upcoming comedy Bad Moms.

“Like crying alone in your car, colouring is a cathartic release from the stresses of modern-day motherhood,” the cover of We Are Social’s Bad Moms colouring book explains. “These beautifully illustrated scenes are designed to channel you into a pre-kid mental state, allowing you to let go of the bullshit and just have fun again. Because you used to party remember? Like, really party.”

Littered with images of dummies, skulls, nappy pins and barbed wire twisted through roses, the 10 page book is being circulated among Australian media and influencers as well as to some moviegoers. Bad Moms – which is from the writers of The Hangover – releases in Australia on August 11.

“There’s a real social truth that at the heart of every great mum is just a little bit of a bad one – and these tattoo-parlour-gone-wrong designs reflect that,” We Are Social managing director Suzie Shaw said.

“It was great working with We Are Social on this project,” Roadshow product marketing manager for Australia and New Zealand, Nicole Byrnes, said. “They brought a great idea to the table and we really enjoyed bringing it to life together.”

In Bad Moms, Amy Mitchell (played by Mila Kunis) has a seemingly perfect life: a great marriage, over-achieving kids, a beautiful home and a career. However, she’s overworked, over-committed and exhausted to the point that she’s about to snap.

The film is set in an upscale Chicago suburb where chic supermum Gwendolyn James (Christina Applegate) is the arbiter of acceptable behaviour. Other mums know not to cross her, and Amy Mitchell certainly never meant to. Life is hard enough. But once she does, it’s war between the good and the bad, with the election for PTA president at idyllic William McKinley School as the battlefield. Yes, there are casualties ~ but that’s the price of progress.