Kate and Singe fall in love as teenagers. Their idyllic life is challenged when their older son has cancer. He is in remission when Kate also gets cancer. Knowing her time is limited, she leaves multiple instructions for Singe and the boys for when she is gone.
Mum's List stars Emilia Fox as Kate and Rafe Spall as Singe (Singe is short for St John, what were his parents thinking?). This film is based on the real-life Singe's best-selling book, and takes a non-linear approach: we dart back and forth between life after Kate, the two of them as lovelorn teens, and their lives as young newlyweds coping with their son's cancer.
Filmed in Clevedon, using the actual locations of Kate and Singe's life and featuring family friends as extras, a strong sense of reality is generated. The film is thoughtful, emotional, tearful and, ultimately, uplifting and hopeful.
There have been a number of films in recent years centred around cancer sufferers, and I have some reservations about cancer as the basis for entertainment. Having said that, cancer exists and I see no reason to exclude anything as a subject for a film. And this one is compassionate, realistic and worthwhile: it doesn't pretty things up, but neither does it plumb the deepest depths of despair. It strikes a fair balance.
And, importantly, it features wonderful performances from both Emilia Fox and Rafe Spall, both of whom have moments which utterly wrecked me: Fox delivers an enormously moving monologue to camera, and Spall has a moment at a bar when he turns to ask Kate what she wants to drink and, of course, she isn't there.
So, while observing that this might not be everyone's cup of tea, I give it a guarded recommendation.
Mum's List stars Emilia Fox as Kate and Rafe Spall as Singe (Singe is short for St John, what were his parents thinking?). This film is based on the real-life Singe's best-selling book, and takes a non-linear approach: we dart back and forth between life after Kate, the two of them as lovelorn teens, and their lives as young newlyweds coping with their son's cancer.
Filmed in Clevedon, using the actual locations of Kate and Singe's life and featuring family friends as extras, a strong sense of reality is generated. The film is thoughtful, emotional, tearful and, ultimately, uplifting and hopeful.
There have been a number of films in recent years centred around cancer sufferers, and I have some reservations about cancer as the basis for entertainment. Having said that, cancer exists and I see no reason to exclude anything as a subject for a film. And this one is compassionate, realistic and worthwhile: it doesn't pretty things up, but neither does it plumb the deepest depths of despair. It strikes a fair balance.
And, importantly, it features wonderful performances from both Emilia Fox and Rafe Spall, both of whom have moments which utterly wrecked me: Fox delivers an enormously moving monologue to camera, and Spall has a moment at a bar when he turns to ask Kate what she wants to drink and, of course, she isn't there.
So, while observing that this might not be everyone's cup of tea, I give it a guarded recommendation.