THE MOTHER
Directed by: Roger Michell.
Produced by: Kevin Loader.
Written by: Hanif Kureishi.
Director of Photography: Alwin Küchler.
Edited by: Nicolas Gaster.
Music by: Jeremy Sams.
Released by: Sony Pictures Classics.
Language: English.
Country of Origin: UK. 112 min. Rated: R.
With: Anne Reid, Daniel Craig, Cathryn Bradshaw, Steven Mackintosh & Peter Vaughan.

Cold, caustic, polite, and understated, The Mother is undeniably British. A succession of brief, but succinct, vignettes set the matter-of-fact tone and instantly establishes the relationship between a couple in their golden years, May and Toots. It’s only a matter of time until the sickly Toots is a goner and May (Reid) becomes a widow with time on her hands. Determined not to live the rest of her life rotting away alone, she moves in with her daughter Paula (Bradshaw), a single mother, who knows a bargain - a free baby-sitter - when she sees one. Paula, with her thick, tousled hair, is passive-aggression personified and reverts to being an angry child, (“Let’s forget about you for second. Let’s talk about me”). Yet the emotionally vacillating Paula pleads with her mother to act as an intermediary in her relationship with Darren (Craig), a lanky, handsome handy man building the conservatory in her brother’s posh home. What will eventually cause a wedge in the family is May’s reemerging sexuality - involving Darren, no less. Refreshingly, the unafraid May makes the first move.

Typically self-effacing, May dismisses her own artistic talents and is the type of mother who attempts to smooth over hurt feelings or confrontations by offering tea. Her affair with Darren is the less believable of the film’s relationships and less daring than it may seem. At worse, the film implies up-for-anything Darren, who will pop or snort any mind-altering drug, needs to be in his constantly altered state to have sex with a woman nearly twice his age. Although making Darren Paula’s longtime lover may seem more kitchen sink than necessary, it’s crucial for Paula’s rivalry with her mother. And even when a plot turn creaks (doesn’t everyone know never to leave your erotic sketches unattended?), writer Kureishi adds welcome humor to the scene where Paula and her brother discover their mother’s secret.

Throughout, writer Kureishi deftly portrays how easy it is to dismiss those closest to you. The family’s lack of emotion may be at times be disturbing, but surely is intentional. Set among the materialistic bourgeois of Cool Britannia, The Mother is as effective as any of Mike Leigh’s diatribes against middle class shallowness. KT
May 28, 2004