I somehow missed this movie when it came out and have discovered it as late as last week thanks to a friend's recommendation. I can honestly say that I cannot remember another intimate dramatic film, which does so many things so well. The writing is crisp, realistic, nuanced, and even restrained. The cinematography and editing are understated but inspired, enabling the visual storytelling to dominate through marvelous close-ups and framing of images, capturing loneliness and alienation in most memorable ways. The acting is also wonderful, with all of the characters becoming painfully real and vulnerable in the most compelling ways that a film can offer. They reveal their innermost weaknesses with unprotected, raw vulnerability. A real triumph for Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi, and the rest of the team. A must see for serious film lovers.

Anne Reid and Daniel Craig are very good in this movie. The whole thing was kind of hard to watch because, sex aside, there wasn't much fun going on and all of the people in it have serious problems with life and with each other. It was believable, and Reid did have serious problems adjusting to life without her husband even if she has happy enough to see him go. But she didn't have enough going for her as a person to make the movie more satisfying. She didn't care for her kids when they were young, and was very self-absorbed, and even though she did the minimum to keep her kids safe, they now show little care for her. If she would have been a really good artist, for example, or have some other more successful social aspect, then the attitude she showed towards her children would have made the movie more interesting. As it was there was an element of boredom throughout the film that made it uninteresting to watch.

"If I sit down I will never stand up again", that's what the mother (the one of the title) says to his son when he tells her to get some rest (she's just widowed). He means that resting is what a woman of his age and in her situation has to do: to rest in peace, to neglect herself. But she's not in the mood for "resting", not yet. She also has a daughter who reproaches her for each and every disasters in her life... Suddenly, the revelation comes: sex and passion in the figure of a muscular carpenter 30 years younger than her (Daniel Craig, the brand new James Bond) when she "thought nobody would ever touch her again". It is a story that makes you reflect on many things, specially on what's a 60 something woman is supposed to do with her life when his husband dies. It doesn't look that we've advanced that such in those aspects. I mean, nobody's surprised when Sean Connery has a love affair in a movie with Catherine Zeta Jones... but what would you think if it was otherwise? An old woman, a young guy... nah, you ain't ready for that, are you?The movie has intimist tones all along its length, except for 2 or 3 sequences in which that tones breaks and out comes some explicit and foul-mouthed dialogs. Those vulgar touches and the way the son and the daughter find out their mother's love affair (pretty absurd -you'll know what I mean when you watch it-) are the only discordant elements in "The Mother". *My rate: 7/10

I tuned in to this movie with the hope of discovering some overlooked gem, a character-study dealing with family relations and dealing with an under-represented subject matter: romance and sexuality among older individuals. Instead, unfortunately, I was left feeling as if I'd just watched a remake of "A Doll's House" written by Darren Star. The performances are strong, but the pacing is excruciatingly slow and the characters are thoroughly unappealing -- mainly selfish, self-absorbed, petty and bitter. The plot concerns a mature (age-wise, anyway), recent widow who falls in love with her neurotic daughter's sleazy, married boyfriend. The widow, feeling she's lead an "unlived" life, is rejuvenated by her much younger lover while the daughter, who feels mum never encouraged her as a child, struggles with the same man who's reluctant to leave his wife. It all comes out, of course, and daughter reacts violently (a disturbing scene) and tosses mum out. Now, I suppose there's intended symbolism with the lover being a handyman renovating the son's house -- but it seems off that it would be the son's house and neither the sister/daughter's or mum's. Anyway, a true clock-ticker and, as with Ibsen, we end with mum leaving her home for good.