IMDb RATING
6.7/10
4.7K
YOUR RATING
A woman has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.A woman has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.A woman has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.
- Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 2 wins & 13 nominations total
Danira Govic
- Au Pair
- (as Danira Govich)
Zelda Tinska
- Barmaid
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe first feature film funded entirely by the BBC (courtesy of the British taxpayers).
- GoofsWhen May is telling Darren about her affair and just before she asks him to take her to bed, Darren does not have a carpenter's pencil in his ear. When we see him a few moments later, the pencil is over his ear.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Mother: Cast & Crew Interviews (2003)
Featured review
Painfully real
Of all the films I have seen this year (2004), none has affected me as deeply and personally as "The Mother", and on so many levels.
For one thing, watching May deal with the grief and loss and sudden disorientation of widowhood, I could not help wondering how my own mother will cope when the time comes, as it surely must, for her and indeed for all of us.
But, as May's story unfolded, it was my own sense of grief and loss and disorientation that I experienced anew. May and I share something in common: not widowhood, but age, or rather the loss of youth, and the invisibility and untouchability that come with age.
I could relate to May's need for passion, her need to be loved, her need, not so much for sex, but simply to be touched. But as we grow older, we are ironically shut out and shunted aside and denied the very thing our souls cry out for. (Note: There are some disturbing and shocking images of sexuality in "The Mother", but don't let them put you off and blind you to the real message of the film.)
May, at least, rediscovers another passion within -- to create art -- and so is able to live again. Not all of us are so fortunate. In this respect, I identify more with May's daughter Paula who, when love and passion fail and die, feels that her creative expression is no longer valid and worthwhile, and destroys her works in a fit of despair.
May is a woman in her late 60s; I am a gay man in my late 40s. Yet our stories are similar in so many ways. What May experiences in a matter of weeks, I have felt over the past decade. My passion has yet to be rediscovered.
It is no accident that "The Mother" was scripted by Hanif Kureishi, who gave us "My Beautiful Laundrette", a love story about two gay men in the flower of youth. "The Mother" is at the other end of the spectrum, a story about age and the denial of passion. To paraphrase the title of another Kureishi film, "The Mother" might aptly be titled "Sammy and Rosie Get Old".
For one thing, watching May deal with the grief and loss and sudden disorientation of widowhood, I could not help wondering how my own mother will cope when the time comes, as it surely must, for her and indeed for all of us.
But, as May's story unfolded, it was my own sense of grief and loss and disorientation that I experienced anew. May and I share something in common: not widowhood, but age, or rather the loss of youth, and the invisibility and untouchability that come with age.
I could relate to May's need for passion, her need to be loved, her need, not so much for sex, but simply to be touched. But as we grow older, we are ironically shut out and shunted aside and denied the very thing our souls cry out for. (Note: There are some disturbing and shocking images of sexuality in "The Mother", but don't let them put you off and blind you to the real message of the film.)
May, at least, rediscovers another passion within -- to create art -- and so is able to live again. Not all of us are so fortunate. In this respect, I identify more with May's daughter Paula who, when love and passion fail and die, feels that her creative expression is no longer valid and worthwhile, and destroys her works in a fit of despair.
May is a woman in her late 60s; I am a gay man in my late 40s. Yet our stories are similar in so many ways. What May experiences in a matter of weeks, I have felt over the past decade. My passion has yet to be rediscovered.
It is no accident that "The Mother" was scripted by Hanif Kureishi, who gave us "My Beautiful Laundrette", a love story about two gay men in the flower of youth. "The Mother" is at the other end of the spectrum, a story about age and the denial of passion. To paraphrase the title of another Kureishi film, "The Mother" might aptly be titled "Sammy and Rosie Get Old".
helpful•718
- livewire-6
- Jul 30, 2004
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- 母親的春天
- Filming locations
- Notting Hill, London, Greater London, England, UK(on location)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $2,500,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,063,163
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $61,913
- May 30, 2004
- Gross worldwide
- $3,039,587
- Runtime1 hour 52 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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