The Mother is a truly terrific film

The Mother

Director: Roger Michell

Cast: Anne Reid, Donald Craig, Steven Mackintosh, Cathryn Bradshaw, Anne Wilson Jones, Peter Vaughan, Oliver Ford Davies

Cert: 18.

A brilliantly-told story of life after death; and from Reid, a performance of towering talent.

Reid, playing a 65-year-old grandmother who moves to London on the death of her husband, turns in one of those performances which grip and hold us throughout a truly terrific film.

In the Big Smoke, May, her character, finds her grown-up children less than welcoming - her son is obsessed with work and has a ghastly wife, her daughter is an emotional wreck conducting an affair with a married man.

With all this going on around her, Mum takes a look at her life and decides something must be done; like starting her own sexual fling with daughter's man.

One cannot praise Reid's measured and wonderfully under-played performance in a film which considers the audience as adult and mature enough to be allowed to follow the plot without being beaten about the head.

There are some, minor, flaws in sections of the dialogue but there is more than enough to make The Mother a minor classic; thanks to Reid.

Star Rating: 4/5