2003



June 9, 2004
Camera 7
UK
English
112 minutes

It Can Take A Lifetime To Feel Alive -- THE MOTHER.

A woman in her mid-sixties loses her husband and begins living like she wished she always had. She moves in with her children, to their obvious chagrin. She becomes more outspoken, picks up long-forgotten art tools. And most importantly, she has loud, passionate, sloppy, realistic sex. This is a revelation to her. She and her elderly husband were in love to be sure, but it had clearly moved from a physical to more of an emotional bond. With his death, she discovers, to her delight, that feelings of ecstasy are no longer lost to her.

Lead Actress Anne Reid is 69 years old. She is in no way a Hollywood actress who is still sexy even over the prohibited (at least in America) age of 45. She isn't Susan Sarandon or Charlotte Rampling or Helen Mirren. She looks just like your grandmother. She isn't a sporty dresser, doesn't have good bone structure, is the personification of "frumpy".

However--and I'm not sure how they managed to do this--I believed to my core, that she could have successfully seduced the man half her age and he would have enjoyed it. She at first makes lunch for, then converses with, and eventually ends up orally pleasuring the contractor who is fixing up her son's London home. As he is a married man, employed by one of her children, while sleeping with the other, she realizes that this is a more than risky move. It is selfish, and she has spent the latter part of her life as unselfishly as she could. She needs to grab a few things for herself before it's too late.

To see her come alive during and after these sexual encounters is something to behold. She had clearly been held dormant for too long. These scenes weren't exactly erotic, it was a bit like walking in on your grandparents, but they weren't offputting either. I sort of liked watching a woman who was sure her ticket had been punched for the last time, getting off. It was strangely liberating. She had been resigned to never being touched again, apart from the undertaker.

Again, it was believable that a frumpy housewife from the English countryside could re-establish her sexuality with a handsome, rugged man, half her age.

Besides this sexual aspect is the larger storyline about how we wish the elderly would stay away from us. Her kids could not be less happy about mom coming into London to live. As this is a quiet English film, there is slow pacing and character development. Thank you for making this and thank you to Reid for being brave enough to do what the role required.

6.8 Critical Consensus
***^ Ebert
**** Stein
*** Wilmington