The Mother 2003

Critics score:
77 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: It sounds like the stuff of soap operas or bad porn, but Kureishi's script is too intelligent and empathetic to titillate. Read more

Marta Barber, Miami Herald: The Mother never fails to engage. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A soap opera with guts: a movie that takes a familiar situation ... and turns it into something rawer and more sexy. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: A well-intentioned but flawed British drama that presents a sexual relationship between a sixtysome-thing widow and a much-younger man, then sidesteps nearly all the issues it's pretending to address. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A troubling film about the need to be wanted. Read more

Arizona Republic: Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's an awkward, discomfiting film, at times floridly melodramatic, at others downright gamy, and yet it gets at truths of human behavior that few movies think to touch. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: There is simply not a false note in this film -- every actor looks and behaves so exactly right that it is unthinkable that any other person play his or her role. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Though their selfishness is repellent, the characters feel strikingly real. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Reid ... is a discovery -- as believable and naturally sexual an older woman as Joan Collins is a caricature of one. Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: The complications of its story are found in the deep complexities of emotions and family relationships. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: It neither reassures nor insults its audience. These days, a film that doesn't insult your intelligence is absolutely refreshing. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Absorbing, if uneven, chamber piece about a suburban woman on the cusp of old age. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: This raw stuff of contemporary kitchen-sink melodrama never gets too gritty or too greasy. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: There is in The Mother a rich understanding of where old age takes you. Along with the myth that seniors don't have sex drives, the film dispels a larger one: that the years bring wisdom. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Real life is often messy and full of unexpected consequences, and The Mother captures that perfectly. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: A thoughtful, beautifully acted story about feeling alive before it's too late to feel anything. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: An intriguing study of the interlocking patterns of human lives that also makes for a superb movie, mature and well-observed, that dwells in the viewer's memory long after the final frame fades. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: Anne Reid stars in this extraordinarily clear-sighted drama as a recently widowed grandmother who pursues an affair with her daughter's hunky, unhappily married boyfriend. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Reid's magnificent portrayal of the indomitable May has been insufficiently appreciated both here and in England. She is nothing short of uncanny. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: It challenges you to figure out how you feel about the people on the screen -- emotionally, intellectually, morally. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It shows how people play a role and grow comfortable with it, and how that role is confused with the real person inside. And then it shows the person inside, frightened and pitiful and fighting for survival. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The script here is by Hanif Kureishi, and Michell navigates its subtleties with ease. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: [Michell] shows what can be accomplished on a small budget with a brilliant script and a cast that rarely makes a false move. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: It's a remarkable film -- one to gnaw at you and keep you up at night. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Uses the surface familiarity of its situation ... to smuggle an elegantly carved Trojan horse full of messy emotional spillover into the theatre. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: Ends up an uneasy brew of too many competing tastes and themes. Read more

Dennis Lim, Village Voice: A taboo-crusher that bracingly resists sensationalism and sentimentality. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: You may not enjoy The Mother (I certainly didn't), but it's a movie so heavy on truth, its spell cannot be denied. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Bracing but superb. Read more