If Tennessee Williams had been a Sussex native without a strain of poetry in his soul, he might have written this kitchen-sink drama from Hanif Kureishi, about two British women--a sixtysomething widow and her high-strung, divorced daughter--who both fall into lust with the same man, a virile but rather crude construction worker. Yet, even though The Mother's plot shares similarities with American plays of the ‘40s and ‘50s, the difference lies in the fact that the works of writers like Williams, Odets, Chayefsky, and Inge were also touching and often sentimental; by contrast, Roger Michell's film is chilly, almost sterile, keeping the characters emotionally distanced from the audience despite their apparently passionate depths. The Mother opens like Ozu's Tokyo Story, with an older couple visiting their self-absorbed children, but soon takes a different path when the husband abruptly dies and the wife is left alone. Before long, this staid, controlled woman (Anne Reid) finds herself attracted to the carpenter who is building an addition to her son's house, even though she knows the man is involved with her troubled daughter. While this has all the makings of soap opera, despite some overloaded dialogue and purple patches toward the close, the story mostly plays out in a curiously dry, detached fashion, giving the film a cold, antiseptic feel that even the raw sex scenes and Reid's powerful performance can't overcome (and a final twist suggesting the film is intended as a parable of female liberation seems a bit of a stretch). Optional. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by director Roger Michell and producer Kevin Loader, a three-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a so-so film.] (F. Swietek)
The Mother
Columbia TriStar, 112 min., R, VHS: $50.99, DVD: $24.98, Oct. 12 Volume 19, Issue 4
The Mother
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