The first of the movies from this year’s Seattle International Film Festival to kick out into a regular run, “The Mother” fits the requirements of a good festival offering. It’s got talent behind it, it’s provocative, and it shines a light on a foreign corner of the world.
And this foreign corner does not just mean London, but an emotional and psychological frontier. That is where the title character travels in this sometimes startling movie.
Hanif Kureishi, the screenwriter-novelist who’s been puncturing British complacency since the days of “My Beautiful Laundrette,” concocted this scenario. Even by the standards of Kureishi’s thorny world, “The Mother” is bereft of admirable characters.
As it begins, mother (and grandmother) May (Anne Reid) suffers the loss of her genial husband (Peter Vaughan). Instead of returning to her home outside London, she wants to stay for a while with her son (Stephen Mackintosh) in the city.
His wife doesn’t care much for May. But May’s daughter, Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw), can hardly take on responsibility for mom. She barely holds together her own frazzled life.
In the middle of this is the son’s friend, a handyman, Darren (Daniel Craig). He’s remodeling a room in the son’s home, and he’s also sleeping with Paula in his spare time. And although he is 30 years younger than May, he becomes her lover.
This, of course, is the reason “The Mother” is stirring up comment. We’re used to seeing, say, old goat Jack Nicholson romancing the likes of thirtysomething Amanda Peet, in “Something’s Gotta Give.” But the older woman-younger man dynamic is close to a taboo.
And this isn’t a glamorous, movie-star older woman, either. We’re not talking about knockout Helen Mirren taking her top off in “Calendar Girls,” or even proper widow Jane Wyman falling for younger gardener Rock Hudson in the 1950s classic “All That Heaven Allows.”
Anne Reid looks like a normal woman in her mid-60s, and the frank nude scenes with her and Daniel Craig don’t hide much. Both actors are very good; Craig hardly resembles his role in “Sylvia” last year, the turbulent poet Ted Hughes.
Roger Michell (“Notting Hill”) guides this with a calm hand, although Kureishi has loaded the characters with so many resentments and cross purposes that not much can stay calm. May and Darren have tangled reasons for their liaison, aside from lust. May seems to be working off hostility toward both her indifferent son and needy daughter.
The unsavory psychological underpinnings of all this make for an intriguing case study, but not a particularly pleasant viewing experience (especially when melodrama takes over in the final third). But by all means, doff your hat to Anne Reid for a gutsy performance.
Anne Reid and Daniel Craig star in “The Mother.”
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