"The Mother"

Roger Michell's film about an affair between an older woman and a handyman with an artistic soul is a story of sexual awakening, yes, but that's only part of it.

By Stephanie Zacharek

May 28, 2004 | Roger Michell's "The Mother" is partly about an older woman who becomes sexually and emotionally involved with a much younger man. But it's also about not quite fitting in, at any age -- and about how, sometimes as we get older, we may feel we fit in less rather than more.

May (Anne Reid) is in her 60s. She and her husband, Toots (Peter Vaughan), travel down to London from their home in the north to spend some time with their two grown children: Bobby (Steven Mackintosh) is an assertively busy young professional with a snooty wife, three children and a cavernous Notting Hill house; Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw) is a teacher and aspiring writer who's just getting by in a small, modest flat. May is reserved and a bit awkward by nature, and although her children are cordial to her, it's clear they love her only in the way you love people when there's no other choice. Toots, the kind of jovial, easygoing fellow who can talk to anyone, is clearly the favorite, the parent the children feel more comfortable with.

May is a loner within her own family, and she feels even more stranded when Toots dies during the couple's London visit. Bobby drives his mother back home, but after she enters the small, tidy house she used to share with her husband (his slippers, left out neatly as if awaiting his return, greet her like a reproach), she realizes she can't stay. She insists on returning to London with Bobby, even though his chilly wife has made it clear she doesn't want May around.

May knows she doesn't belong there, but then, she belongs nowhere: It's as if she's simultaneously trying to assert her existence (perhaps for the first time in her life) and fold herself up to be as small and unobtrusive as possible. But she does manage to strike up a friendship with Darren (Daniel Craig), the 30-ish workman who's helping to renovate both Bobby's house and Paula's flat. Although he has a wife and child at home, he's also sleeping with Paula, who clings to him desperately, clawing at him in the hopes that he'll commit to her. But even though Paula is a more "age-appropriate" love interest for Darren, he has more in common with May: A college dropout, he gravitates toward art and poetry. And May, who has spent her life taking care of her children and husband, realizes that her own curiosity about the world around her is blossoming. The two of them start out talking easily, almost flirtatiously. Before long, May has surprised even herself by asking Darren to come to bed with her; he agrees, and not wholly out of pity for her. The relationship becomes dense, complex and sweet, but it's also, for the obvious reasons and some subtler ones, deeply troubled.

Next Page: The sex scenes are handled delicately, but their erotic charge is intact

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