Movie Review: Mothering Sunday

 Movie Number 24 of 2022

Movie: Mothering Sunday

Cinema: Rivoli Cinema, Camberwell

Stars: 4.5

Something I must do this year is get in early and book myself a block ticket for the British Film Festival - for this is one for which I saw trailers, and then went and forgot about it. 

Mothering Sunday is a little beauty. 

It's 1923. World War I and its effects are still reverberating across the families of England. Jane Fairchild (Australian actor Odessa Young) is a foundling and a maid, in service,working for the Nivens (Colin Firth and Olivia Colman). It's Mother's Day, and the Nivens are off to Henley to meet friends for lunch. The Nivens give Jane the day off to be left to "her own devices." These happen to be meeting up with her lover, Paul (Josh O'Connor) the son of another upper class family in the district. He is about to marry a family friend. They know their love is forbidden, but they mesh. In other parts of the film, we see and adult Jane and her husband Dennis (Sope Dirisu) face challenges. 

Following along with this older incarnations of Jane - Jane of the later 1940s and Jane, a number of years later played by Dame Glenda Jackson, who are both trying to make peace with this particular Mothering Sunday. 

And that's all I'll say about the plot. 

The film has many themes - forbidden love, families and their expectations, grief, class. It's all in there. Along with some other English staples - country houses, green fields, classic cars, the upstairs/downstairs mentality and something only the English can do - showing repressed emotions that threaten to poke through the surface, but not quite. The best thing about this film is you don't know where it is going. 

Odessa Young is luminescent as Jane, the motherless servant who knows her place, but is willing to skirt the boundaries. This is her breakout performance. Josh O'Connor is wonderful as her lover, Paul, who's dealing with the triple whammy of being the last of his siblings to be alive after the war, managing the expectations of his family by marrying a family friend, promised to his brother, and being in love with the inappropriate Jane. 

Colin Firth and Olivia Colman portray the Nivens, the family for whom Jane works for. They are good, caring employers, but both have been shattered by the years past.

The other highlights of this film is the cinematography and setting, which shows England, in Spring, at it's very best. 

Eva Husson's direction is assured, and not dissimilar to the direction of Terence Malick in it's dream like qualities. This does not have a linear chronology, which will confuse some and delight others. 

I was initially surprised at the film's MA rating, but a large amount of full frontal nudity has made it 'necessary' - it's appropriate, a little surprising and adds to the feel of the film. 

As English films go, this is wonderful - engaging on an emotional and visual level across many themes. 

It's on limited release around the country and well worth a look. 

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