The Mother **** (2003, Anne Reid, Daniel Craig, Peter Vaughan) – Classic Movie Review 1422

Director Roger Michell’s 2003 drama is a challenging, taboo-breaking eye-opener, with a provocative, poignant screenplay by Hanif Kureishi and marvellous, bold performances by Anne Reid and Daniel Craig.

The husband (Peter Vaughan) of an English woman (Reid) in her 60s dies, and she takes up with the family’s carpenter, her daughter (Cathryn Bradshaw)’s boyfriend (Craig). The construction worker is in an unsatisfying marriage but he doesn’t want to leave his wife because of his son. Reid gets to know and like Craig, but she still encourages her daughter to break up with him as she herself has fallen in love with him. The two then begin a passionate affair.

Anne Reid is superb in a brave, raw performance that involves her in emotional extremes and sex scenes with the much-younger man, and Kureishi’s script is unusual, thought provoking, intelligent and outstanding. Despite a hopeful ending, this is a dark and depressing saga rather than the elating, life-affirming experience you might be hoping for.

The London locations are extremely well used in a flavoursome, beautifully photographed movie by director of photography Alwin H Kuchler. The moment when the angry daughter hits her mother is searingly chilling.

Also in the cast are Steven Mackintosh, Oliver Ford Davies, Anna Wilson-Jones and Danira Govich, Harry Michell, Rosie Michell, Carlo Kureishi, Sachin Kureishi and Jonah Coombes.

The Mother is directed by Roger Michell, runs 112 minutes, is made by BBC Films, Free Range, Renaissance and Sony Pictures Classics, is released by Columbia Pictures, is written by Hanif Kureishi, is shot by Alwin H Kuchler, is produced by David M Thompson and Kevin Loader, is scored by Jeremy Sams and is deigned by Mark Tildesley.

You might think this is a surprise project from the director of Persuasion (TV, 1995), Notting Hill and Changing Lanes, except that he made Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia miniseries in 1993. Roger Michell and Daniel Craig team up again in 2004 for Enduring Love.

Anne Reid has described how the prospect of filming the sex scenes with Daniel Craig reduced her to tears. She said: ‘The night before I had a lot of drink on my own in the flat and I stripped and I stood in front of a mirror and thought tomorrow I’m going to have to show this. And I started to cry and I thought “Oh my good God I can’t do this”. So I rang my son and I was weeping and he said “Look mum, it’s a great part, if you’re inhibited it’s not going to work so just go for it”. And I sort of managed to pull myself together but it was scary.’

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1422

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Anne Reid in The Mother (2003).