Director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) and writer Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette) look at a family that has many complicated problems in their critically acclaimed film The Mother.  This film, the first feature wholly financed by the BBC, has won several awards is now available in Region 1 on a very nice looking DVD.

May (Anne Reid) and her husband Toots travel to London to see their two children.  Their son, Bobby, is a well to do business man, married to an attractive wife and living in a large house, and their daughter, Paula, is a flaky single mother who is struggling to get by.  While they have a nice, if slightly strained visit, a tragedy occurs; Toots dies.  Left on her own, May doesn't want to go back to her own house to live.  It would just be too lonely, so she moves in with her son.

At first her family feels sorry for her, but very soon she starts getting on their nerves.  They have their own lives, and May isn't sure what she wants to do with hers.  Enter Darren (Daniel Craig,) a handyman who is working Bobby's house.  He is young and rugged, and takes the time to talk with May, something the rest of her family won't do.  May finds herself attracted to Darren even though she knows that her daughter is sleeping with him, and that Darren is married.  These taboos aren't enough to stop May though, and she soon starts having an affair with Darren herself.  The consequences of which will alter their family forever.
 
This sounds like a movie that is just going for titillation, throwing some taboo sex into an otherwise dull movie to get some free publicity from an outraged press.  The film is much more than that though.  It thoughtfully looks at the relationships in the family.  On the outside everything looks fine, but underneath the surface things are falling apart.  The daughter has no self esteem and that leads her into destructive relationships, the son seems stable, but he's allowing his wife's whims to push them into bankruptcy and May doesn't know how to survive on her own.

While I could recognize that the writing was strong and that this film would appeal to a lot of people, I just couldn't get into it.  I couldn't relate to any of the characters, and found all of them to be repulsive.  Bobby is cold and aloof, who looks at his mother moving in as more of an irritation than anything else.  Paula is terribly self centered, only caring about her self and blaming all of the problems in her life on her mother.  (And what was with the last thing that she wanted to do to her mother?)  Even May is unlikeable, proceeding to advance her school-girl crush though she knows it will hurt her daughter.  Darren is the worst of the bunch, being a drug addict who just uses the women around him for his own gain.

The direction by Roger Michell was uneven.  While I really liked his work on Notting Hill, one of the few 'chick-flicks' that I can say I truly enjoyed, this film didn't have the humor and cross gender appeal that his more famous movie did.  The film is shot is a cinema vérité-style that works for the most part, but makes it harder to connect with the characters.  Michell wisely decided to imply May and Darren's first sexual encounter, but shooting it out of  focus with white curtains fluttering in front of them.  A little cliched, but tasteful.  Unfortunately he decided to let taste fly out the window while filming their second encounter, and shot Anne Reid toppless while Daniel Craig was behind her pumping away.  This brought the film down to a tacky and tasteless level that really wasn't needed.

If their had been some character that I could sympathize with maybe I would have been able to enjoy the this movie more.  As it was, the drama was just a little too heavy for me and I spent a lot of the film thinking that everyone on screen just needed a swift kick in the pants.

Audio:

The movie comes with a DD 5.1 soundtrack.  Since this is a dialog driven film, there isn't much use made of the soundstage, and most of the dialog is centered on the screen.  Though there is occasional background noise in the location scenes, the audio is generally clear and clean.  A nice if somewhat average sounding disc.

Video:

The widescreen anamorphic video was looked pretty good. There was some heavy handed edge enhancement at times, but aside from that the image looked fine.  The colors were even and the contrast was good.  The night scenes were particularly good looking, with details still strong yet shadows still distinct.  Digital defects were almost nonexistent.

Extras:

Also included on the disc is a 3 ½ minute featurette that seems like a promotional tool used to sell the film.  If you've seen the movie, you'll know everything that's included in this piece.

The commentary is by director Roger Michell and producer Kevin Loader, and they talk mainly about the actual making of the film.  Why people were placed in certain positions inside a shot, the shooting schedule, and what was cut and deleted.  A little on the dry side, this goes a little too much into the actual nuts and bolts of making a film for me, but should interest budding directors.

There is also trailer for the film.

Final Thoughts:

Though this movie has garnered a lot of acclaim, it just wasn't the film for me.  I couldn't relate to  the thoroughly unpleasant cast of characters.  And while I don't think there is anything morally wrong with a lady in her 60's sleeping with a man half her age, I don't want to watch it happening.  While there were some interesting questions raised, I thought the overall plot distracted from them to much.  Rent it.