Sign In / Sign Up

The Mother

The Mother
Release date: 2003-11-14
Rating: 6.1
Votes: 56
Genres: Drama, Romance
A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

This is quite a tough film to watch. Not so much because of the subject matter, but because you just know there is an inevitability about the conclusion which is going to leave everyone damaged! Anne Reid is good as the eponymous character ("Mary") who loses her husband and finds that she just cannot go home. She spends her time between her son and his family and with her daughter and her young son. The former is having his house extended, and so has employed "Darren" (Daniel Craig) - who just happens to be the married boyfriend of her daughter "Paula" (Cathryn Bradshaw). Lonely and craving human companionship, "Mary" gradually becomes infatuated with this hunky tradesman, despite him being half her age, and he is all too willing to help her out. Obviously, her family find out and that's when it all goes awry. It's also when the plot heads full speed into melodrama. This already pretty dysfunctional family sees the wheels come off and the nuanced, emotional and sensitive elements are jettisoned for anger and an sense of the truly unpleasant and course develops. Reid and Craig have a couple of decent scenes together, but for the most part the remaining cast are all pretty lacklustre and the longer it goes on, the more desperate it seems to shock - for the sake of it. The age-gap relationship/sex storyline could have delivered something more here had director Roger Michell not just chickened out.

Movie Recommendation

  • RV
    RV
    2006-04-28
    Climbing aboard their mammoth recreational vehicle for a cross-country road trip to the Colorado Rockies, the Munro family – led by dysfunctional patriarch, Bob – prepares for the adventure of a lifetime. But spending two weeks together in one seriously small space has a way of cramping their style.
    More...
  • The Tinder Swindler
    The Tinder Swindler
    2022-02-02
    Posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond mogul, an Israeli conman wooed women online then conned them out of millions of dollars. Now some victims plan for payback.
    More...
  • House of Sand and Fog
    House of Sand and Fog
    2003-12-19
    Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.
    More...
  • The Dressmaker
    The Dressmaker
    2015-10-29
    In 1950s Australia, beautiful, talented dressmaker Tilly returns to her tiny hometown to right wrongs from her past. As she tries to reconcile with her mother, she starts to fall in love while transforming the fashion of the town.
    More...
  • I Know What You Did Last Summer
    I Know What You Did Last Summer
    1997-10-17
    After an accident on a winding road, four teens make the fatal mistake of dumping their victim's body into the sea. Exactly one year later, the deadly secret resurfaces as they're stalked by a hook-handed figure.
    More...
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    2009-02-27
    Swedish thriller based on Stieg Larsson's novel about a male journalist and a young female hacker. In the opening of the movie, Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged publisher for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Nevertheless, he is hired by Henrik Vanger in order to solve a cold case, the disappearance of Vanger's niece
    More...
  • Big Trouble in Little China
    Big Trouble in Little China
    1986-05-30
    Truck driver Jack Burton gets embroiled in a supernatural battle when his best friend Wang Chi's green-eyed fiancée is kidnapped by henchmen of the sorcerer Lo Pan, who must marry a girl with green eyes in order to return to the human realm.
    More...
  • Interstellar
    Interstellar
    2014-11-05
    The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
    More...
  • The Shawshank Redemption
    The Shawshank Redemption
    1994-09-23
    Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
    More...
  • Pulp Fiction
    Pulp Fiction
    1994-09-10
    A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.
    More...
  • Titanic
    Titanic
    1997-11-18
    101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
    More...
  • Avatar
    Avatar
    2009-12-15
    In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.
    More...
  • Nightcrawler
    Nightcrawler
    2014-10-23
    When Lou Bloom, desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina, a TV-news veteran.
    More...
  • The Devil Wears Prada
    The Devil Wears Prada
    2006-06-29
    Andy moves to New York to work in the fashion industry. Her boss is extremely demanding, cruel and won't let her succeed if she doesn't fit into the high class elegant look of their magazine.
    More...
  • Coco
    Coco
    2017-10-27
    Despite his family’s baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz. Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Hector, and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel's family history.
    More...
  • Dunkirk
    Dunkirk
    2017-07-19
    The story of the miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain, Canada and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk between May 26th and June 4th 1940 during World War II.
    More...
  • Spirited Away
    Spirited Away
    2001-07-20
    A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.
    More...
  • Star Wars
    Star Wars
    1977-05-25
    Princess Leia is captured and held hostage by the evil Imperial forces in their effort to take over the galactic Empire. Venturesome Luke Skywalker and dashing captain Han Solo team together with the loveable robot duo R2-D2 and C-3PO to rescue the beautiful princess and restore peace and justice in the Empire.
    More...
  • Inception
    Inception
    2010-07-15
    Cobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.
    More...
  • The Godfather
    The Godfather
    1972-03-14
    Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.
    More...

Similar Movies