The Mother
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Movie Reviews of The Mother
Movie Review: A Quiet But Beautiful Film
Summary: 5 Stars
This low budget movie shines in all areas. Directed by Roger Michell (NOTTING HILL, PERSUASION, ENDURING LOVE) and written by Hanif Kureishi of MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE fame, THE MOTHER's plot may jolt even the most jaded viewer. May, played by Anne Reid, is a 60ish mother of two whose husband dies early in the film. Not wanting to return to the now lonely home where she prevously lived, she visits her son and daughter, who do not really want her. While visiting her single daughter, she has an affair with handyman Darren (Daniel Craig) who is half her age. While the age difference is enough to raise eyebrows in some circles, the real kicker is that Darren is her daughter's lover. (On the other hand, if Jack Nicholson can continue to star in movies where he sleeps with women 30 and 40 years younger than he, why not Anne Reid? Call it the "Cher Syndrome."
Not to worry. This film is done with sensivity and grace. May literally loses twenty years from her face when she meets the carpenter and, if only for a brief period, comes alive. At one point she tells him that we must live before we die. And live she does. Of course, along the way she hurts her daughter, who was already pretty much a mess before she had to deal with competition from her mum. The acting by everyone is first rate. Reid and Craig give very fine performances. The character May generates a lot of sympathy in spite of her transgressions. A victim of her times, she married when women were judged by how well they kept their houses. Now a recent widow, she is adrift, alone and isolated from her two children and ready for the coming maelstrom.
The film has much to say about the relationship between children and parents, generational dysfunctionality, the perils of old age, what it means to live or at least try to, the fragility of life.
THE MOTHER is beautifully shot with a lot of natural light. In many ways it is a very quiet movie. Many of the silent scenes illuminate so much what the director and writer are trying to say. Just one example: there is a terribly sad but moving scene when May returns to her empty house and sits looking at her husband's house slippers. For some reason, nothing is more heart-breaking than the empty shoes of a departed loved one, much more so than shirts or trousers or suits.
One final note-- and a very nice touch. Each time the letter "M" is in a word in the credits it is done in red while the other letters in the words are in white.
Don't let the subject of this movie keep you from seeing it. You will be richly rewarded.
Movie Review: A Tender Examination of the Alienation and Isolation of Man
Summary: 5 Stars
THE MOTHER is an extraordinary film that addresses many issues plaguing our society today: the problem of aging, death, the disintegration of the core family unit, the need for love transferred unsuccessfully onto casual sex, and loneliness at the end of the day.
May (Anne Reid of 'Love and Death on Long Island', 'The Dresser', 'Liam' in a stunningly underplayed performance) and her husband Toots (Peter Vaughn) have traveled from Northern England to visit their children and grandchildren in London. Son Bobby (Steven Mackintosh) is married to his work and to a cold wife Helen (Anna Wilson-Jones) who is self-absorbed and not at all ready for the intrusion of an 'old couple' in her home currently under remodeling by a friend of Booby's, a carpenter Darren (Daniel Craig) who just happens to be the lover of May's and Toot's other divorced and perennially frustrated daughter Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw).
Toots dies rather abruptly, leaving May lost in a world she views as strange and unfriendly, so trapped in her marriage of many years to a man who never acknowledged her worth as a person. Unable to return to her home, May is offered a place to stay with Bobby and spends time looking after Paula's single-parented child. Through a gradual a very delicate mutual need, May becomes infatuated with Darren who is half her age and because of Darren's mutual neediness, the two have a sexual as well as a spiritual bonding. The bizarre circumstances of mother and daughter bedding the same man are discovered and the manner in which this fragmented family unit copes provides an ending that will surprise few, but will touch the hearts of all.
Roger Michell ('Notting Hill, etc) directs Hanef Kureishi's ('My Beautiful Launderette') screenplay with sensitivity and grace, never allowing the film or his characters' acting to be mawkish or maudlin. The cinematography is some of the finest you will see in a film of a small story: frames suggest minimalist art constructions, even Mondrian forms. Likewise the musical score is generally limited to a simple, elegantly lonely piano. This is a profound statement that hopefully will jar many people into re-examining life in the 21st Century and try to repair some of the devastating effects of alienation in a time of need. Highly Recommended.
Movie Review: Beautifully Unpredictable
Summary: 5 Stars
Beautiful cinematography, excellent script, thoughtful, excellent acting, combined with understated direction offers a glimpse into a very profound reawakening of life.
Anne Reid delivers a brilliant performance as May, transforming from grandmother, mother and wife, to lover. She opens the film with her husband (played by Peter Vaughan), as dull and preoccupied. Her life appears to be lived `asleep at the wheel'.
The ensuing speed of her husband's unexpected death, the tremendous state of shock, and the subsequent `awakening' surpassed my description of `beautiful portrayed'. Daniel Craig delivers a complex performance as May's daughter's married lover Darren. He pulls off an even deeper character complexity with the ensuing love affair (older woman and a younger man). May and Darren are passionately, tastefully and believably depicted. May's adult children Bobby (Steven Mackintosh), and Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw) bring their characters to life.
The Mother (2003) is a beautiful film that would best be seen in a darkened cinema. Fortunately, it transfers well to DVD and the small screen with the huge perk of a selection choice of the director's comments that you can turn on for the second viewing. This DVD also contacts a `Featurette' containing short interviews with one of the actors, Daniel Craig, the director, Roger Michell and screenwriter, Hanif Kureishi.Roger Mitchell has it in him to direct great films, and he can add The Mother to his successes. Hanif Kureishi remains a genius at capturing interpersonal chemistry between characters through fantastic dialogue, which bleeds beyond the family into the `extended family and friends'.
One of the many examples of the unpredictably, beautiful cinematography slipped in when May was washing her face, after her 'awakening'. The camera films from below the glass sink through the air bubbles, viewing up to the surface, to May dunking her hands into the water to slash her face; an elegant metaphor.
This film pivots around a dramatic event tendering a slice of life, which felt true to me. I came away from The Mother with the feeling that brilliant flames can erupt into a seemingly sleeping life with the disheveled, unpredictable stuff of life ensuing.
Movie Review: The ties that bind--and break.
Summary: 5 Stars
Roger Michell's "The Mother" ranks with "Cries and Whispers" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night" as one of the most unpleasant, profoundly disturbing portraits of a dysfunctional family ever put on film. It is also undeniably brilliant at showing the frayed knots of family loyalty that only need one good shock to break irrevocably. Hanif Kureishi--an old hand at making audiences squirm--tells the story of May (Anne Reid), a sixtyish housewife in a semi-rural English town, visiting her children in London with her husband Toots (Peter Vaughan). Ten minutes into the movie, Toots dies, leaving May totally at a loss. As the film makes plain from the beginning, May's life has revolved entirely for decades around caring for Toots. At first we think the film will be a poignant study of a woman's grief. May doesn't want to go back to her empty house, but her children plainly don't want her around: her son Bobby (Steven Mackintosh) is a cold, self-centered businessman, and her daughter Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw) is a needy, whining neurotic who blames her mother for nearly everything that's gone wrong with her life. We think the story will be about May's learning to stand up for herself and make a new life. (When Bobby asks May not to be difficult, she stiffens and asks, "Why shouldn't I be difficult?") But then May meets Darren (Daniel Craig), Paula's sexy, moody boyfriend and a man half May's age, and from then on all expectations fly straight out the window and land with a crash. I wish the publicity for the film didn't reveal what happens between May and Darren, but even so the impact of it assaults the audience like the punch in the face Paula eventually gives May. If the movie were just about an elderly woman's sexuality, it wouldn't be so shocking; what shocks is May's selfish betrayal of Paula, and the brutal fashion in which Paula discovers it. At that moment we lose all our moorings as an audience, and have no idea who among the characters to side with, if anyone. We still have sympathy for May--as we don't for the patently hateful Paula, Darren and Bobby--but we also gasp in horror at her heedless behavior, and get an idea why her children turned out the way they did. "The Mother" is hard to sit through, and also hard to forget.Movie Review: A Bold and Uncompromising "Mother"
Summary: 5 Stars
I noticed recently that this title has gone out of print (as of 10/12/06), so I felt compelled to say a few words about what I feel is a very special film. I want to encourage anyone who has not seen it to grab a copy NOW while you still can, and I hope that a great designer label (perhaps Criterion) will pick it up and showcase it to a greater audience.
"The Mother" is a very adult tale and that's part of what makes it so special. Aside from the somewhat graphic, intergenerational sex scenes which are noteworthy enough--"The Mother" offers up one of the most complex and uncompromising character studies ever put on film. Anne Reid is flawless as the mother in question. Widowed, sixty-something and completely dissatisfied with life in general, she enters into an illicit affair with the friend of her son. She feels her life is empty, useless--and the affair is her one way to feel again, feel anything. Is it passion, love, degradation? In truth, it's a combination of all three and her only tangible way to grasp at the life she has become so disconnected with. The film never asks you to sympathize with her, it's a "warts and all" approach. Far from being a heroine, you will be left questioning her motivations, her incapacity to love, her familial loyalty. It's a brave, bold, and stunning portrait.
Every time you think you know where the story is headed, your expectations are thwarted. Like real life, things don't necessarily follow an inevitable logic nor do they resolve themselves tidily. Daniel Craig does solid work, as usual. But it's Reid's show. In a fierce performance, she lays body and soul naked--a performance that surely would have garnered an Oscar nomination if the film had a higher U.S. profile.
For those that lament the lack of ADULT, challenging films--this is a must see! I found myself rooting for these characters even though much of their behavior is destructive. I just find it refreshing when things don't have to be nice or happy or polite. That may be what is represented in most movies, but life is more complex than that! KGHarris, 10/06.