Simply A Masterpiece

Great Film overall

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The Mother is a harsh, severe film about relationship and families. The characters are not physically abusive but mentally with children who simply do not care or are just 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 as well as having an affair himself with Reids's daughter.Reid who raised her children, had a job and was almost dutiful to her husband is emotionally re-awakened by her affair with the youthful and physical Craig and 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 does not want to waste away in her former marital home.The film is uneven, its a glorified television film but writer Hanif Kureshi, despite a few sex scenes handles the themes in a more sensitive and subtle manner than his earlier works.

Anne Reid's performance as May, the mother, in this film is perhaps one of the finest female performances of the last decade. She played May who with her husband visit their adult children in London from the suburbs. When they get there, her husband who is already not well dies. May doesn't want to return to her old life alone in the suburbs. She returns to London although a lukewarm situation. Her daughter-in-law, Helen, was not happy and her daughter, Paula, needs a babysitter. Her son, Bobby, is busy with work. In the duration, May befriends Darren played by Daniel Craig. As the movie progresses, we see May and Darren's friendship turn into something more. Darren and May begin off as kindred spirits even though he's in a relationship with May's daughter, Paula, an aspiring writer/teacher with a son, Jack. The film slowly unravels May's character as a simple widow like peeling onion layer by layer. Still, Anne Reid's performance deserved an Academy Award nomination for this performance.

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.

With the death of her infirmed husband, May, an older woman faces a future in an urban world that views her as invisible, dead from the neck down, and unwelcome in the pseudo- sophisticated yuppie homes of her son, Bobby and his shallow wife, Helen, and Paula, a self- absorbed, clinging, and minimally talented daughter. The central family is anything but warm, supportive, and understanding of her new and tragic stage in life as a widow. The Mother is a quiet character study that points up how in some societies, an elder parent is both unwelcome and seen as a burden to grownup children whose careers and status seeking overshadow all else. As May comes to realize the world is still important to her, the lonely widow finds her libido reawakened and alive with her daughter's boyfriend, Derrek (Daniel Craig), a carpenter and rough sort. May embarks on an uninhibited sexual affair with Darrek whose character is sympathetic to her at first, but his flawed nature is quickly revealed through the pressures of the women who surround him.This is the kind of role Hollywood actresses of a certain age whine is never written for them, but they would never appear in because of the frankness, overt sexuality, unglamorous wardrobe, little makeup, and social commentary on the vapidness of the very society that most film industry middle age actresses are enchrenched. The performance of lead actress, Anne Reid ranges from quiet to giddy and her interpretation blossoms on screen from the drab widow to a sexually alive and freed up middle age woman whose performance is sans face-lift, hair extensions, botox, and liposuction. She bares more than her soul on-screen with Craig.Craig as the enabling handyman who beds mother and daughter turns in another stellar performance that is at first sympathetic to the widow's situation, but in the end is without redemption. As his true nature unfold and he is literally the rooster in a hen-house his aimless inability to say no to the ex-wife, boring girlfriend, and her mother is blamed as the root of his ineffectual existence. While good with his hands at building a conservatory, he is unable to construct meaning in his life.One of the best films from Britain in years, it is simply adult in its storyline. The Mother is the rare kind of film that is perhaps too honest for American audiences to tolerate having no car chase, no bling, no rap soundtrack to drown out the cretin performances by TV starlets and buff studmuffins. The Mother reflects how the aging baby boomers are now disposable people that offspring are willing to overlook, send to the retirement home, and get out of the way. May doesn't know what to do as she is made alive by Darren, isn't willing to go to the old folks home, and finds her kids are more conservative than she ever was at their age.