Synopsis
A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.
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Cast
- Anne ReidMay
- Daniel CraigDarren
- Peter VaughanToots
- Steven MackintoshBobby
- Cathryn BradshawPaula
- Anna Wilson-JonesHelen
- Danira GovićAu Pair
- Izabella TelezynskaPolish Cleaner
- Oliver Ford DaviesBruce
- Jonah CoombesEstate Agent
Recommendations
- 100
Los Angeles Times
Every element of The Mother, directed by Roger Michell and written by Hanif Kureishi, fits together with perfection. The film's staging -- the way its settings create a world that allows for striking images that echo the psychological interplay of its people, the way in which every performance could not be any better -- is awe-inspiring. - 80
The New York Times
The screenplay bluntly faces anxieties of aging that are rarely voiced in the movies, and it is too hard-headed to offer comfy palliatives. - 80
Salon
Reid is stunning here. - 75
New York Daily News
Turns out to be a thoughtful, beautifully acted story about feeling alive before it's too late to feel anything. - 70
Village Voice
By turns expansive and astringent, The Mother is a portrait of a woman who, with the dazed courage of someone finally awakened to the world after decades of passivity and repression, keeps on walking. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
The film is marvelously acted all around, and the fact that there isn't a false note in the entire film is especially impressive given Kureishi's melodramatic contrivances and the fact that his characters are clichés whose behaviors are predictable at nearly every turn. - 60
New York Magazine (Vulture)
There is in The Mother a rich understanding of where old age takes you. Along with the myth that seniors don't have sex drives, the film dispels a larger one: that the years bring wisdom. - 50
Variety
A portrait of a contempo British family drifting apart because of generational differences, The Mother ends up an uneasy brew of too many competing tastes and themes.
