Film Review
The Mother
Dir. Roger MichellScr. Hanif Kureishi
Anne Reid
Daniel Craig
Steven Macintosh
Cathryn Bradshaw
Oliver Ford Davies
Official Site - www.sonyclassics.com/themother
I wasn't ready for this one. Thought I was but it turns out I wasn't.
Written by Hanif Kureshi (My Beautiful Launderette) and directed by Roger Mitchell this film follows the life of a woman after the sudden death of her husband on a trip to visit their children and grand children. Anne Reid is compelling as the woman who now must face a future alone.
What makes this film so interesting is that I could never decide if she was glad her husband had died and she didn't have to care for him anymore. Perhaps it is to the film makers' credit that the relationship between the elderly couple seems fraught with both love and frustration that often seem to inhabit long term relationships.
Not wanting to return to her home in the north of England she opts to stay with her daughter, a single mother basket case full of deep frustration at her life and her mother and desparate to snag her brother's best friend who is married but not happy and so ill-disciplined in life that he will go anywhere, do anything, take anything (any pills in the medicine cabinet will do, regardless of their original purpose). The mother becomes enthralled with this basically useless rogue (Daniel Craig) and ultimately invites him to bed her. Yes, I said bed her.
The Mother takes an unexpected turn when the main character opens herself up to a much younger man, her daughter's 'boy-friend', and embarks on a highly sexual journey with him which in the end can only end in disaster for all concerned. Which it does, sort of. The mother's apparent selfishness, or is it desperation at the prospect of a life only with no one to touch her or hold her? (one of the most intimate scenes is one in which she confesses that after the death of her husband she never thought that she would be touched again, until touched by an undertaker) leads eventually to a clearing of the air in the entire family. The sexual relationship between this elderly woman and younger man is at once a sensational device and at the same time a reminder to us all that desire and need continue long after society considers the physical body worthy of such attention. It also serves to highlight the complexity of what it means to be human, the paradoxical nature of the pysche, the conflicts which rage in all of us.
I am not sure if The Mother answers those issues as much as addresses them in a thoughtful and provocative manner which leads us to think seriously about our own lives and desires.
Written by Hanif Kureshi (My Beautiful Launderette) and directed by Roger Mitchell this film follows the life of a woman after the sudden death of her husband on a trip to visit their children and grand children. Anne Reid is compelling as the woman who now must face a future alone.
What makes this film so interesting is that I could never decide if she was glad her husband had died and she didn't have to care for him anymore. Perhaps it is to the film makers' credit that the relationship between the elderly couple seems fraught with both love and frustration that often seem to inhabit long term relationships.
Not wanting to return to her home in the north of England she opts to stay with her daughter, a single mother basket case full of deep frustration at her life and her mother and desparate to snag her brother's best friend who is married but not happy and so ill-disciplined in life that he will go anywhere, do anything, take anything (any pills in the medicine cabinet will do, regardless of their original purpose). The mother becomes enthralled with this basically useless rogue (Daniel Craig) and ultimately invites him to bed her. Yes, I said bed her.
The Mother takes an unexpected turn when the main character opens herself up to a much younger man, her daughter's 'boy-friend', and embarks on a highly sexual journey with him which in the end can only end in disaster for all concerned. Which it does, sort of. The mother's apparent selfishness, or is it desperation at the prospect of a life only with no one to touch her or hold her? (one of the most intimate scenes is one in which she confesses that after the death of her husband she never thought that she would be touched again, until touched by an undertaker) leads eventually to a clearing of the air in the entire family. The sexual relationship between this elderly woman and younger man is at once a sensational device and at the same time a reminder to us all that desire and need continue long after society considers the physical body worthy of such attention. It also serves to highlight the complexity of what it means to be human, the paradoxical nature of the pysche, the conflicts which rage in all of us.
I am not sure if The Mother answers those issues as much as addresses them in a thoughtful and provocative manner which leads us to think seriously about our own lives and desires.