One of the most overlooked items of good news (not a typo) last year was that a little Irish comedy-drama won the Audience Award at the BFI London Film Festival. Hardly seismic in the rolling-doom scheme of things, but nice all the same if you're an oul softie. And if you are, then you need Four Mothers as much as it needs you.
The new film from A Date for Mad Mary director Darren Thornton, co-written with his brother Colin, was partly inspired by a fateful encounter they had with an Italian movie called Mid-August Lunch. The brothers were looking after their mother Trish at the time; what they saw in the Rome flat on screen clicked with their experience as carers, and they brought the story back home in more ways than one. The results are sweet, salty, and sure to resonate with anyone who has ended up doing a role they never envisioned for themselves, becoming their own worst critic in the process.
With a flawless Irish accent, Scottish actor James McArdle plays Edward, a first-time author on the cusp of the literary big time - and also back in his boyhood room looking after his 81-year-old mother Alma (Fionnula Flanagan). Alma had a stroke and can no longer speak; she communicates via tablet, and that means she and Edward can still argue ("Be confident!", "Stop looking at me!") all day.
But really, Edward is doing a brilliant job - so much so that his three pals (Gearóid Farrelly, Gordon Hickey, Rory O'Neill) decide that he should also look after their mams (Stella McCusker, Dearbhla Molloy, Paddy Glynn) while they leg it to Maspalomas Pride. Now, there are five people in a house where two had cabin fever, and, like Edward's publishers, the ladies won't take no for an answer.
Sure, we know what the arc is going to be here, but isn't that why people will always want to see it done well? This is a perfectly cast film with Fionnula Flanagan doing some of her best work by saying nothing while her co-stars get all the zingers. The chemistry is great, the ensuing messiness is often lifelike, and by the close you'll probably wish you could have spent more time with all concerned - Four Mothers is shorter than it needed to be. House guests who don't overstay their welcome? Who knew?!
The audiences in London were right: this is a crowd-pleaser. Hopefully, it gets a crowd to please.
