The Mother (2003) User Reviews (61)

Daring, powerful and often harshly candid

[anhedonia · 8/10 · 4 August 2004]

[WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS]

I have this adult friend for whom the notion that her parents have sex makes her terribly uneasy. She came to mind when I reflected on the audience's reaction to "The Mother."

People gasped when May (Anne Reid) writhed passionately in bed with her younger hunk lover, Darren (Daniel Craig) or later saw sexually explicit drawings by May. I doubt the audience was aghast at the nudity or the drawings' content as much as feeling uneasy at seeing a woman in her 60s rapturously enjoying sex.

Screenwriter Hanif Kureishi ("My Beautiful Laundrette," "My Son the Fanatic") again proves why he's among the most trenchant storytellers on either side of the Atlantic. His story's not easy to take. This searing family drama isn't a film you can claim you enjoyed watching because it's raw, complex, and often makes us very uncomfortable. Nevertheless, it's powerfully good stuff.

Kureishi and Roger Michell (who directed "Notting Hill," of all things) craft an unsentimental, wrenching and superbly-acted portrait of an older woman who realizes, after all these years, she can and should still enjoy all of life's pleasures. In a wonderfully epiphanous moment, when her son, Bobby, asks her not to be difficult, May shoots back, "Why not?"

Why not, indeed.

Anne Reid deserves an Oscar nomination for her turn as May. It's subtle, restrained, powerful and sad, often all at the same time. Watch Reid when May observes Darren and Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw) in a seemingly passionate clutch in a pub. Or, when she begs Paula to open the front door after a disastrous date. Reid's eyes and face reveal all of May's anguish and despair. In the film's most devastating moment, May drops to her knees before Darren, willing to do anything for him, only asking him to be kind. This is a tremendously gutsy performance by a remarkable actress.

I enjoyed Michell's use of natural sound, especially when May and Toots first arrive at Bobby's place. It perfectly illustrated the cacophony around May and Toots, the flippant manner in which their own family welcomes them.

This film, at times, reminded me of the honesty and rawness of Mike Leigh's work, except "The Mother" hangs on to a slight sense of optimism to keep afloat.

My one quibble: Michell's decision to give May and Darren's first love scene an almost cheesy sensibility. The lovers remain out of focus while, in the foreground, a white curtain flutters gently in the breeze. And the only sound is of May in the throes of passion.

The problem with Michell's approach is that both Reid and Craig, who completely envelops the role of Darren, plough their way so fearlessly into these roles that it's unfair to hide their characters' almost primitive energy from the audience. Especially since Michell has no qualms about making later sex scenes visceral.

This film doesn't have immensely likable characters. We sympathize with May, but she, too, causes her daughter's suffering. But I doubt Kureishi intended to people his story with likable folk. His point, I believe, was to unmask a family that's already cracking when something emotionally cataclysmic happens. It's unflinching in its candor and ultimately unforgettable.

An honest and non-exploitative family affair

[iain_connell · 8/10 · 8 February 2005]

This is an excellent film dealing with a potentially exploitative subject with great sensitivity. Anne Reid, previously best known in the UK for her TV roles including 'Dinnerladies' (a Victoria Wood scripted series on in-company catering workers, if you're wondering), gives a performance of finely judged understatement as May, a late-60s bereaved mother of two chattering class adults in an inner-London borough. Her husband Toots (Peter Vaughan) dies on their visit to the male of the latter species (Bobby), and we see the pair being rather casually greeted by Bobby and his family. May's teacher daughter Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw) lives nearby, however, and the relationship between May and Paula initially appears closer. Thus when May decides she cannot live in her own home and comes back to London, she is able to stay in Paula's house and do some child-minding of Paula's more appreciative offspring.

It is on May's visits to Bobby's house that she embarks on an affair with Darren, a mid-30s friend of Bobby who is working on a house extension. In what may be the first mainstream British film to so portray it, it is May and not Darren (Daniel Craig*) who initiates the encounter, and, at least to begin with, it seems that the relationship is founded on mutual respect. There is no explicit sexual content (at least in the DVD I saw: differences in the IMDb cast list suggests the existence of other versions), and the physical basis of the affair is handled directly but not exploitatively. More strongly portrayed is the relationship between May and daughter Paula, a recent convert to 'therapy and self-exploration', who announces that mummy has never been supportive of her. Paula is also Darren's lover, and when she finds May's explicit but rather poor drawings of Darren and May together, things go downhill in dramatic but controlled fashion. Only in an English film, perhaps, could a daughter announce that she is going to hit her mother, politely ask her to stand up, and duly wallop her.

In the mean time, May is being drawn into a putative relationship with a decent but older (of her own generation) member of Paula's writing group. The contrast between the ensuing unwanted intercourse and her affair with Darren is clearly made; it is at that point that May starts to acquiesce to Paula, and Darren's worm begins to turn (he reveals on cocaine that he may have been after her money, if not all along, but for some of the ride). So May finds herself superfluous to both of her children's needs, and finally does return home (but later leaves on a jet plane for pastures new).

The film's strength is that it portrays with unflinching but sympathetic truth the nature of contemporary adult parent-sibling relationships, where bereavement may leave the surviving parent feeling more alone than if they had no-one to care for them. This is not new, but the openness of the portrayal of sexual need in the over-60s may well be. The darkness of the film's content, from a screenplay by Hanif Kureishi, stands in contrast to the way in which it is lit (it seems to be perpetual summer), and the overall mood is uplifting - it could so easily have been yet another piece set in a dour and rainy England. The ending is perhaps under-written, as we don't know where May is going or for how long - perhaps she's Shirley Valentine with a pension, she's certainly no Picasso. Anne Reid is, however, revealed as a fine actor whose professional life will surely have changed forever. Like Julie Andrews in Torn Curtain (said by Paul Newman), "There goes your Mary Poppins {read Dinnerladies} image for good".

* Yes, he: announced Oct 2005 as the new James Bond.

Fine acting, but no-one to like in this family

[Philby-3 · 6/10 · 12 January 2005]

There's a very fine review by law prof on these pages and not much for me to add. Ann Reid puts in a superb performance as the middle-aged mum whose desires are re-awakened by her bullying husband's sudden death and Daniel Craig plays the Rough Trade tradesman with great gusto. There's also a wonderful cameo from Oliver Ford Davies as an elderly and inept suitor for Mum's hand. The story is told very clearly with sparkling photography – the cheerful visual atmosphere being rather at odds with the grim storyline.

My problem however with the film is that everyone in it is either completely repulsive (eg the son and daughter in law and the rough tradesman) or is behaving badly. Mum is a sympathetic character but she makes all the wrong choices, and behaves pretty selfishly, though we do get an inkling as to why. She wouldn't be the first Mum to kick over the traces after a long marriage to a dominant partner. But we wind up feeling sorry for her daughter rather than Mum because she gets done over, not because she is otherwise sympathetic.

The trouble with movies like this that, though they are true to life and emotionally convincing, they leave an unpleasant aftertaste. Are we all that selfish and immature? Well, families are dangerous places and the majority of murders are committed by a member of the victim's families, but relatively speaking murder is a rare crime. Competition between mother and daughter for the same (trashy) lover is probably pretty rare also. When it does happen, a film about it is probably justified. Still, at the end we wind up with no-one to like, which rather muffles the impact of the story.

Painfully real

[livewire-6 · 30 July 2004]

Of all the films I have seen this year (2004), none has affected me as deeply and personally as "The Mother", and on so many levels.

For one thing, watching May deal with the grief and loss and sudden disorientation of widowhood, I could not help wondering how my own mother will cope when the time comes, as it surely must, for her and indeed for all of us.

But, as May's story unfolded, it was my own sense of grief and loss and disorientation that I experienced anew. May and I share something in common: not widowhood, but age, or rather the loss of youth, and the invisibility and untouchability that come with age.

I could relate to May's need for passion, her need to be loved, her need, not so much for sex, but simply to be touched. But as we grow older, we are ironically shut out and shunted aside and denied the very thing our souls cry out for. (Note: There are some disturbing and shocking images of sexuality in "The Mother", but don't let them put you off and blind you to the real message of the film.)

May, at least, rediscovers another passion within -- to create art -- and so is able to live again. Not all of us are so fortunate. In this respect, I identify more with May's daughter Paula who, when love and passion fail and die, feels that her creative expression is no longer valid and worthwhile, and destroys her works in a fit of despair.

May is a woman in her late 60s; I am a gay man in my late 40s. Yet our stories are similar in so many ways. What May experiences in a matter of weeks, I have felt over the past decade. My passion has yet to be rediscovered.

It is no accident that "The Mother" was scripted by Hanif Kureishi, who gave us "My Beautiful Laundrette", a love story about two gay men in the flower of youth. "The Mother" is at the other end of the spectrum, a story about age and the denial of passion. To paraphrase the title of another Kureishi film, "The Mother" might aptly be titled "Sammy and Rosie Get Old".

Passion of the mother

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 16 February 2014]

The Mother is a harsh, severe film about relationship and families. The characters are not physically abusive. They are mentally. Adult children who simply do not care or are distant from their parents.

The emptiness of the parent-child relationship is there to see from the beginning as we see Peter Vaughan and Anne Reid travelling on the train to London to see their selfish son and equally selfish daughter.

Reid soon becomes a widow and lives with her children for a while and starts an affair with his son's friend and builder (Daniel Craig) who also happens to be married. He is also having an affair himself with Reid's daughter.

Reid who raised her children, had a job and was almost dutiful to her husband. She is emotionally re-awakened by her affair with the youthful and physical Craig. This is depicted by her etchings.

Contrast this when her daughter tries to set her up with an older man for which she has no emotional connection.

The film does not entirely explain why Craig beds Reid, or why the children are so selfish and even bitter.

The ending leaves a visceral punch to the gut. Almost all the characters are unlikable but at least Reid makes a journey of discovery and decides she doesn't want to waste away in her former marital home.

The film is uneven. It is a glorified television film but writer Hanif Kureishi, despite a few sex scenes handles the themes in a more sensitive and subtle manner than his previous works.

A harrowing depiction of mortality versus morality

[justmessin05 · 6/10 · 6 December 2005]

As I watched The Mother, I could not help but think how much my own mother would enjoy this film, perhaps as much as I myself was not enjoying it. The film is unarguably artfully shot, with wonderful use of reflections and distorted images. Yet the story failed to draw me in; I found it impossible to relate with this elderly woman who is scared of becoming old, being a young male. Nevertheless, as a director, Michell still managed to address those of his audience with similar situations as me. I was still able to feel May's quiet anguish over her realization of her frail mortality, which is accentuated through her husband's death, her grownup children, and her affair with Darren. May's tryst with Darren does break social taboos, and as an audience member, I honestly cannot say that I was comfortable with the image of an old woman having graphic sex with a much younger man. But I also could not blame May for her decision, as if to condemn her for being old, and thus unable to take pleasure in activities that are supposedly only for younger people. My heart particularly went out to May in that scene when she allows Bruce to practically rape her; the scene was hard to watch and had a dirty feel to it, and when I realized that it represented her reluctant acceptance of her age, I felt a compassion for her. Nonetheless, I still feel that Michell never truly conveys his message. May's horrendously selfish daughter tells her how easy a life she had, and from what I could gather from the film, I had to reluctantly agree. Therefore May's dilemma lacks the emotional punch it deserves, but Michell's film still serves as a poignant tribute to the realization of mortality.

Tough, Touching, Sometimes Funny Encounter With a Big Taboo

[lawprof · 9/10 · 30 May 2004]

Kids - of whatever age - do not want to know about their parents' sex lives. And grown-up children are often seriously baffled and disconcerted by any evidence that aging parents possess an active libido. Lastly, many moviegoers are very uncomfortable watching a dowdy, frumpy widow who would pass unnoticed almost anywhere discover her aching capacity and need for raw passion with a handsome man half her age.

"The Mother" is a provocative look at a scarcely filmed reality - a woman who isn't ready to stay home, watch "the telly," and vegetate after her husband of nearly three decades, and a controlling, dominating chap at that, packs it in with a massive heart attack.

May (Anne Reid) and her husband have two children, each dysfunctional in his or her own way. The male son lives with a beautiful wife who may well be driving him to the Bankruptcy Court with her extravagant commercial venture. Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw), is a teacher with aspirations of succeeding as a writer. She's attractive, not pretty, and she seems to have a close relationship with mum - at first.

Back at her house after burying her husband, May determines to not stay there. Rejecting typical widowhood with its legacy of boring days and no adventure, she goes to stay with Paula who has a young son. Paula's boyfriend, Darren (Daniel Craig), is a ruggedly handsome contractor who seems to be taking an awfully long time to complete an addition to May's son's house. May is quite taken with hard-drinking, coke-sniffing Darren whose treatment of Paula ought to have alerted May that he was, for sure, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Cads.

What follows is a torrid affair between Darren and the besotted and now bubblingly alive (dare I say reborn?) widow. The love scenes are graphic but take second place to amateur artist May's pen and ink sketches of their trysts which then play a role in the enfolding drama (or debacle, take your pick).

The theater in Manhattan was packed for today's early afternoon showing with well over half the audience in the range of May's age. That some were shocked or disturbed to see her disporting herself with erotic abandon in the arms of a much younger man is an understatement.

This blindingly honest look at an older woman's awakened passion after decades of dutifully obeying her husband's desire that she stay at home and raise kids (she also mentions he didn't like her to have friends-what a guy) surfaces a number of issues. While May's dalliance with Darren doesn't constitute incest, there are real psychological dimensions, and issues, with a mother bedding her daughter's lover. And Paula isn't made of the stoutest stuff to begin with. The affair, once disclosed, allows the peeling open of the mother-daughter relationship which, from Paula's viewpoint, left something to be desired. Ms. Bradshaw is excellent in the role of a daughter who wants her mother's support as well as her love-she hasn't been dealt a terrible hand by life but it isn't a bed of roses either.

May is strong in her resolve to both acknowledge her sexuality and expect, indeed demand, a future of happiness. But she is also inescapably vulnerable. She's fishing in uncharted emotional waters. Who controls her relationship with Darren and why are difficult issues for her to understand, much less resolve. In her sixties, she's still a work in progress.

"Something's Gotta Give" recently showcased mature sexuality but in an amusingly antiseptic way assuring no viewer would be discomfited. After all it's Jack Nicholson and the always beautiful Diane Keaton cavorting in the world of the rich. And to insure that no serious psycho-social issues were explored, Keaton's young girlfriend, Amanda Peet, daughter of Keaton, not only blesses the match but insures that the audience knows she and her old(er) would-be lover never hopped into the sack.

No easy out here. Anne Reid's inspired performance forces discomfort on some while drawing respect from others. Her naked body bursts with sexuality for some and appears absurd as an object of physical attraction to others (the comments of audience members leaving today reflected all these views).

Kudos to director Roger Michell for tackling a fascinating story with verve and empathy.

9/10.

Bitch Mother

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 18 November 2005]

"The Mother" is a weird low-budget movie, touching at least two uncomfortable themes not usually explored in the cinema: denial of love of mother for their own son and daughter, and lust and passion in the third age.

The characters are awful: May is a disgusting old lady and I believe it is impossible to feel any kind of sympathy or sorrow for her. She confesses that she did not love her son and her daughter. She cheated her husband twice with an intellectual. She steals the beloved man of her daughter, not to protect her from a guy without moral, that does not love her, but just because she feel horny with him. She is trying to organize her life after the loss of her husband in the worst possible way, destroying her daughter delusions. Paula, her daughter, is a fragile loser, who accepts her life the way it is. Her brother Bobby is a man who lost his savings because of his wife, who insists in having her shop, a terrible business indeed. Darren is an amoral addicted jerk who does not like anybody, even himself.

The acting and direction are excellent: the actresses and actors have outstanding performances and the direction is very precise. I liked this movie, but I recognize that it is recommended for very specific audiences. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Recomeçar" ("Re-Start")

Shockingly Intelligent

[MOscarbradley · 9/10 · 30 January 2005]

A fierce, shockingly intelligent piece of work from the gifted British writer Hanif Kureishi who wrote "My Beautiful Laundrette", (this is the best thing he's done since then). It's about intelligent people whose lives don't add up to much. They've squandered what they have been given and are largely empty vessels. The only character on screen who is alive is the mother of the title yet she feels dead inside until a rough handyman shows her some affection and awakens her to the joys of sex. He has his own motives but Kureishi treats him with a good deal of compassion. This is a film in which people and places feel familiar, where characters exist beyond the confines of the screen. In some respects it's a bit like "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" but it's an altogether tougher piece of work. The director, Roger Michell, allows scenes to build instinctively. And it is beautifully acted.

As the eponymous mother Anne Reid betrays her wasted life in every gesture. There is not a false note in her extraordinarily lived-in performance, and that very fine actor Daniel Craig displays shadings to his character than even Kureishi hasn't tapped into. If the film strikes a false note it is, perhaps, in the character of the talentless daughter, caught up in a messy affair with the man her mother seduces (or should that be the other way round) and even messier life, but she is so well played by Cathryn Bradshaw she hooks you in nevertheless. The film is also extremely beautiful to look at (DoP Alwin Kuchler) and must rank, unhesitatingly, as the best British film of the year.

Better than average Brit indie flick

[The_Triad · 6/10 · 18 January 2007]

The Mother is a solid and well made film that tackles a taboo subject in a relationship movie context. It revolves around its title character, a grandmother, getting involved in her daughters affairs (well, that's one way of putting it.) and the fall out of her actions.

To me, these sorts of films (of the indie melodrama kind) are probably best used as a showcase for the talent involved, a vehicle for actors and directors to make an interesting film, a film that would receive high critical praise, but not a film that people would fall in love with so much as to watch on a regular basis. To that end, The Mother succeeds very well, the acting and its partly controversial subject matter making it stand out from the competition.

Though I found it compelling viewing, especially from an acting standpoint, I would have liked a better ending to lift the film to an even higher level, but taken as it is, if you want a slow burning, well acted, family drama, this will do rather nicely.

Scary real

[debkamaine · 2/10 · 3 May 2020]

Anne Reid is a marvelous actor, simply marvelous. Some things that were strange were the lack of grieving or things around a just-died family father and grandfather. The ending was a shocker, keeping the contractor in the family, such a real picture of family dysfunction, though. Families have these interjections, he was an addict, lost in his personal life, user of women, and part of the family. These interjections come in many forms, addiction, profound physical illness, mental illness. The dysfunction was the family in keeping him. The brother-sister relationship was portrayed really well. The insecure daughter was realistic along with the "winning" sibling, and the uncaring daughter-in-law. . It really was a brilliantly done movie. Very sad commentary on being old but she was headed for open horizons.

Wonderful Film

[meganhenry-2 · 10/10 · 10 November 2007]

What a moving film. I have a dear friend who is in her sixties and for the past 15 years has told me that people don't see her anymore, and she longs for companionship. Being in my late 40s I am beginning to see what she has been complaining about. You are no longer youthful, beautiful or touchable. When May says "...this lump of a body..." wow. How our bodies change and how we are told it is no longer beautiful. I love when she begins to change what she wears...the colorful scarf...no longer the frumpy wife.

It is a sad and wonderful picture at the same time. Sad in that May betrays her daughter's trust...beautiful in that she finds herself through the difficulty of the affair, and chooses to move on and finally have her own life. I love the character's daring to even initiate the love affair.

Mostly I love the movie because finally it is a picture that shows the intricate nature of relationships, be they familial or not. We see Paula's vulnerability, yet she will have what she wants at all costs...(when she tells her mum that she will have a baby for Darren whether he wants one or not after her mother asks if Darren even wants a child). The movie hits the mark on the how relationships can change, and yet reveals what has been there all along, dormant. May has stifled her own creativity to raise a family. A family that she didn't really want, but was "something you just did when she was young". I love the scene when Darren calls her an old tart, and she smiles and says "I was never called that before". It was truly a gem of a movie.

And Daniel Craig. Well, i just love him. I was pleasantly surprised. Not only is he pleasant on the eyes, he is a real talent. What a neat role. He is much more than any 007 that is for sure and I look forward to seeing him in more roles of this nature. The scene where he is pleasuring May and the look he gives her is sort of a look of wonder that he has such control over this woman, and also one of pleasure of being able to give this to her. He is actually enjoying giving her pleasure. A wonderful scene. The contrast is the love scene with Bruce. Bruce is totally absorbed with his own pleasure...two completely different men.

Alas...I wonder where is my Darren?

superb drama

[mcdonellbrf · 7/10 · 13 January 2004]

This is a really interesting film. It's the first time I have seen the relationship between an older woman and a younger guy on screen without it being sensationalist. For the director of Notting Hill this is a bold move to something serious

Portrait Of An Unpleasant Family

[robertconnor · 3/10 · 28 July 2005]

May (Anne Reid) and Toots (Peter Vaughan) are paying an apparently infrequent visit to their son Bobby (Steven Mackintosh) and his family in London. Even as the visit begins, Toots suffers a fatal heart attack, leaving May adrift, unsure, and questioning her life and future. Finding herself attracted to her daughter's boyfriend Darren (Daniel Craig), her actions lead to inevitable consequences.

Beautifully filmed, but for all its heralded realism and acclaim, The Mother offers a collection of mostly unpleasant, even repellent characters, and asks the viewer to engage with them. Reid shines as May, and it is her skill and commitment as a wonderfully understated actor that salvages the film from a completely depressing mire, but Michell and Kureishi have allowed Craig, Mackintosh and Cathryn Bradshaw to create such utterly obnoxious characters, that it becomes increasingly difficult to care what happens to May. As written, the characters played by Mackintosh and Bradshaw are in fact so utterly selfish and cold-hearted that one begins to wonder what exactly was Kureishi trying to say. As directed, they are either unwilling or unable to lift Bobby and Paula above the two dimensional in their ghastly selfishness.

Worth seeing for Reid's performance, but little else. A crying shame...

A very contemporary British "kitchen sink drama"

[noralee · 28 June 2004]

"The Mother" is a raw unpeeling of relationships between older parents and adult children in a very contemporary take on the British "kitchen sink drama".

Every character is baldly selfish to the point of startling brutality. Each one responds to attempted openings of lines of communication with "But what about me?"

The naturalism is palpably realistic, such that when Hanif Kureish's script crosses a line to go a bit over the top it's upsetting and jarring.

Director Roger Michell is particularly good at capturing the domestic mise en scene of sounds -- from simultaneous conversations to children's chatter -- and sights, such as lingering over meaningful visuals from a pair of old slippers to a casually bare torso.

Anne Reid gives the gutsiest older woman performance since Kathy Bates in "About Schmidt" and Helen Mirren in "Calendar Girls," but those were mostly played for laughs and didn't reveal the painful de-layering of inhibitions. Her character's continued low self-esteem to the point of accepting abuse is difficult to watch.

Except for a very atypical appearance in the first "Lara Croft," Daniel Craig has avoided depending on his magnetic hunkiness on screen. Here, as in "Sylvia," his manliness is a protean catalyst for the plot. In a complex triangle of relationships, his carpenter obliges the other characters' obsessions to project their fantasies and needs on to him.

While the grandmother finds some independence and self-respect, I'm not optimistic about the grandchildren in this dysfunctional family.

Mommy ain't the dearest - but she sure can....

[orchidbauDOTcom · 6/10 · 23 December 2007]

This is a great movie if you hate people.... I loved it. This well crafted piece succeeds in delivering a fairly original film that is utterly compelling and completely engrossing... and, yet, there isn't a character in this film that is remotely likable. I mean, the family portrayed in this film put the "func" in "dysfunctional." Actually, they put the "dysfunctional" in "dysfunctional." Imagine your recently widowed, senior citizen mother, who you can't stand, coming to stay with you.... and then carries on a very May-December romance with the builder working on your home! Well, not really a romance per se... no more like doing the big-time nasty-nasty whenever the opportunity arises. Oh yeah - and the builder boinking Mom is also boinking her thoroughly unpleasant daughter. Just when you think it couldn't get much more insane, the bitter, sour children find out about Mother's little (ahem!) affair via her sketchbook, which Mommy has been filling in with very crude, very explicit drawings of her builder and herself in various illicit sex acts - including one really crude piece boldly portraying her performing oral sex on the brawny builder. And you thought your mother was bad! Anne Reid, who portrays the mother, deserved some kind of award... when do you see a woman over 50 on screen, naked and engaging in very (I mean VERY) explicit sex scenes. I say good for her. If you went by mainstream media you'd never know that anyone over 50 ever has sex... unless it's in the context of a Viagra ad that reduces older people having sex as something humorous - something to be giggled at. Trust me, when you see Mother and young builder get it on, nobody will giggle.

The Mother

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 3 September 2023]

This is quite a tough film to watch. Not so much because of the subject matter, but because you just know there is an inevitability about the conclusion which is going to leave everyone damaged! Anne Reid is good as the eponymous character ("Mary") who loses her husband and finds that she just cannot go home. She spends her time between her son and his family and with her daughter and her young son. The former is having his house extended, and so has employed "Darren" (Daniel Craig) - who just happens to be the married boyfriend of her daughter "Paula" (Cathryn Bradshaw). Lonely and craving human companionship, "Mary" gradually becomes infatuated with this hunky tradesman, despite him being half her age, and he is all too willing to help her out. Obviously, her family find out and that's when it all goes awry. It's also when the plot heads full speed into melodrama. This already pretty dysfunctional family sees the wheels come off and the nuanced, emotional and sensitive elements are jettisoned for anger and an sense of the truly unpleasant and course develops. Reid and Craig have a couple of decent scenes together, but for the most part the remaining cast are all pretty lacklustre and the longer it goes on, the more desperate it seems to shock - for the sake of it. The age-gap relationship/sex storyline could have delivered something more here had director Roger Michell not just chickened out.

Michell redeems himself

[Hedgehog_Carnival · 9/10 · 7 June 2004]

It's hard to imagine a director capable of such godawful crap as 'Notting Hill' pulling off something as sensitive and as attractive as this, but well, here's the evidence and it's quite compelling. Several have alluded to TV drama, and yes, this does have a seventies Play for Today feel at times, but is always a cut above, mainly I think owing to some quite superlative acting from Anne Reid and to a fine script which shadow-boxes with cliché without ever getting one on the nose, except maybe right at the end. (I didn't like either the tracking shot of indifferent goodbyes through the hallway, nor the oh-what-a-beautiful-morning final scene: she deserved a more studied finale than that I think, after all that hard work. The slippers business was a bit OTT too, on reflection).

What I mean about avoiding cliché: well, I for one had a sinking expectation that the "mature" man May's daughter tries to set her up with would be cast in 2 dimensions as a repulsive old bore, so as to point the contrast more painfully with the attractive, virile young geezer he is unwittingly competing with. Instead, we get an unexpectedly subtle and sympathetic cameo of a lonely, clumsy, not entirely unlikeable and very human fellow, who nevertheless doesn't have much of a clue about entertaining a woman. It was around that point I started to sit up and pay more attention. Here was a script that let the actors breathe and do something interesting with fairly minor parts. Almost Mike Leigh in that respect (minus the contrived catharses that the latter inexplicably goes in for).

And of course I was, as everyone probably was, dumbfounded by what Anne Reid does with her character and with her body. She's /not/ "the repressed, dutiful housewife discovering herself for the first time", this is far too simplistic for the character we have. Again and again there are allusions to her having been a "bad housewife", not to mention that thing she does with trays, trying to look nurturing and comely and only succeeding in looking awkward. The daughter accuses her of having "sat in front of the TV all day" instead of, well, whatever her motherly duties might be presumed to have been: she has no answer. She never was a model wife and mother, at least not to herself - that's where a lot of the poignancy comes from, the sense of someone having wasted a life trying to fulfil a role she simply wasn't good at, ever.

It's evolution, baby!!

[rainking_es · 7/10 · 9 March 2006]

"If I sit down I will never stand up again", that's what the mother (the one of the title) says to his son when he tells her to get some rest (she's just widowed). He means that resting is what a woman of his age and in her situation has to do: to rest in peace, to neglect herself. But she's not in the mood for "resting", not yet. She also has a daughter who reproaches her for each and every disasters in her life... Suddenly, the revelation comes: sex and passion in the figure of a muscular carpenter 30 years younger than her (Daniel Craig, the brand new James Bond) when she "thought nobody would ever touch her again". It is a story that makes you reflect on many things, specially on what's a 60 something woman is supposed to do with her life when his husband dies. It doesn't look that we've advanced that such in those aspects. I mean, nobody's surprised when Sean Connery has a love affair in a movie with Catherine Zeta Jones... but what would you think if it was otherwise? An old woman, a young guy... nah, you ain't ready for that, are you?

The movie has intimist tones all along its length, except for 2 or 3 sequences in which that tones breaks and out comes some explicit and foul-mouthed dialogs. Those vulgar touches and the way the son and the daughter find out their mother's love affair (pretty absurd -you'll know what I mean when you watch it-) are the only discordant elements in "The Mother".

*My rate: 7/10

Remarkable. A must see.

[RobertKeronen · 10/10 · 11 December 2009]

I somehow missed this movie when it came out and have discovered it as late as last week thanks to a friend's recommendation. I can honestly say that I cannot remember another intimate dramatic film, which does so many things so well. The writing is crisp, realistic, nuanced, and even restrained. The cinematography and editing are understated but inspired, enabling the visual storytelling to dominate through marvelous close-ups and framing of images, capturing loneliness and alienation in most memorable ways. The acting is also wonderful, with all of the characters becoming painfully real and vulnerable in the most compelling ways that a film can offer. They reveal their innermost weaknesses with unprotected, raw vulnerability. A real triumph for Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi, and the rest of the team. A must see for serious film lovers.

It's haunting me

[melissa-600 · 7/10 · 9 October 2021]

One of those films that makes you think. Still slightly creeped out 24 hours on. Good acting by the leads.

Good, could have been better

[mfsor · 5/10 · 21 March 2006]

Anne Reid and Daniel Craig are very good in this movie. The whole thing was kind of hard to watch because, sex aside, there wasn't much fun going on and all of the people in it have serious problems with life and with each other. It was believable, and Reid did have serious problems adjusting to life without her husband even if she has happy enough to see him go. But she didn't have enough going for her as a person to make the movie more satisfying. She didn't care for her kids when they were young, and was very self-absorbed, and even though she did the minimum to keep her kids safe, they now show little care for her. If she would have been a really good artist, for example, or have some other more successful social aspect, then the attitude she showed towards her children would have made the movie more interesting. As it was there was an element of boredom throughout the film that made it uninteresting to watch.

Who wants Bruce when you can have James Bond?

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 5 August 2018]

The Mother is a very intelligent drama, one that would guarantee to have you talking, a taboo topic that isn't often visited. The question, how should someone when they're in advanced years, retired and had families behave? Should they put their slippers on and await the inevitable Nursing Home, or should they go wild, grabbing opportunities as they arise.

The story is a complex one, but intelligent and thought provoking. The main thing i'm sure many will ask is, is May a good person or not? Do her feelings for Darren come from a good place, come from grief, or has a hidden passion burned away her entire life? I felt bad for Paula, a daughter slightly messed up, who's set to find out the worst possible news about the love of her life.

Superb performances, Anne Reid is phenomenal as May, she totally steals the show with a powerhouse performance, where she displays passion and total apathy. Daniel Craig is also superb, you can totally believe in May falling for his character, handsome, care free, but all is not as it seems.

Brilliant, and a reminder of how good the quality of film making is from The BBC, I ask though, why has this style of show vanished from our screens?

Quality viewing, 9/10

The Mother

[cultfilmfan · 6/10 · 25 June 2005]

The Mother, is about a woman in her 60's named May, who lives with her husband Toots. They go to visit their daughter Paula in London, and while there Toots passes away. May, stays with Paula for awhile and Paula explains to her that she is in love and dating a man named Darren, who is a contractor who is working on an addition to the house. Paula is worried that Darren may not love her so she gets May to spend some time with him to find out. As they spend time together the two of them start to form a relationship of their own despite their age difference and they have to keep this a secret from Paula, and the rest of the family. Winner of The ALFS Award for British Actress Of The Year (Anne Reid, who plays May) at The London Critics Circle Film Awards. The Mother, has good direction, a good script, good performances from everybody involved, good original music and good cinematography. The Mother, is a well made and very well acted film and it starts out looking like it will be a good film and it is OK but it never quite delivers the emotions or passion that I think it wants to. Sometimes the film feels like there is too much going on and there really isn't a single character to like or feel sympathy towards in this film. After awhile the film also becomes quite slow and as time went on I started losing interest in it. The film is well made and has some really good performances but the end result really left no impact on me at all when I think it is trying to and it just really didn't do anything for me. Not a terrible film but it is not a film for me and in my opinion not nearly as good as some critics have said it is. A flawed film that could have been good but it just never quite makes it.

Selfish souls struggling...

[herrick416 · 5/10 · 8 September 2019]

Oh my. This is a movie with some superb acting ... maybe that's why my personal dislike for each and every character is as enthusiastic. The plot isn't mundane or boring. The deep disassociation between family members is left open as to its cause. It might challenge our preconceived ideas about motherhood and unconditional love... even love at all. I recommend it for thought provocation at the very least