England,
2003, 112 min
Shown in 2004
CREDITS
- dir
-
Roger Michell
- prod
-
Kevin Loader
- scr
-
Hanif Kureishi
- cam
-
Alwin Küchler
- editor
-
Nicolas Gaster
- mus
-
Jeremy Sams
- cast
-
Ann Reid, Peter Vaughan, Anna Wilson Jones, Daniel Craig, Steven Mackintosh
- source
-
Sony Pictures Classics, 550 Madison Ave., 8th Floor, New York, NY 10022. FAX: 212-833-7911.
-
COMMENTS
Roger Michell, Hanif Kureishi in person.
OTHER
Family dysfunction and emotional awakening lie at the heart of this ironic, mature and poetically photographed film from Roger Michell (quite a departure from his Notting Hill and Changing Lanes). May and her ailing husband visit their grown children in London as a sort of reunion—one that tests their relationship. Her estranged son is too busy to engage in a decent conversation, her daughter-in-law and grandchildren barely acknowledge them and her single-mom daughter has deeply buried issues to get off her chest. And then her husband suddenly dies. Faced with a life of loneliness and estrangement ahead of her, May realizes she has missed out on fully experiencing life. She abandons the role of caregiver and mother and desperately plays catch-up, no matter what the risk or, apparently, who gets hurt. Her object of desire: the local carpenter remodeling her son’s house, who is also her daughter’s noncommittal lover. This eye-opening story by Hanif Kureishi, writer of such films as My Beautiful Laundrette (SFIFF 1986) and The Buddha of Suburbia (SFIFF 1994, directed by Michell), finds humor in unexpected places as May equally astonishes and repulses her children—and surprises us with her conflicted honesty, ambition and naiveté.
—Stefan Gruenwedel
FACTOID #85
In 1996, Harvey Keitel was the first recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award, honoring “brilliance, independence and honesty” in acting. Honest he was. During the clip show at his tribute Keitel, unhappy with one of the clips, began waving his arms and shouting until the screen went black. The screen lit up with a new clip and the tribute continued.
