There is always space, it seems, for another warm-hearted story about the foibles of Irish working-class women, cosy as a fireside chat with a nice cup of tea. As for gay men and their mams, that’s a rich seam of drama, comedy and whatever lies in between that is probably inexhaustible. The four mothers who give Darren Thornton’s film its title all have gay sons and have come to some sort of accommodation with that uncomfortable knowledge, however badly it sits with the church where these sons deliver them dutifully every Sunday morning. After all, they couldn’t live without their boys — literally. Who else would put up with them and still show the love? “It does get easier,” mutters one of the sons to another as they huddle in a back pew. “When?” is the anguished reply.
Except that it’s not real anguish, just a comedy version of it: Thornton keeps the tone light and the pace frisky. The demands and difficulties of looking after an elderly person whose grip on reality is drifting are mostly the source of rueful jokes; the men’s shared desire to have a bit of a sex life before middle age closes over their heads is not the stuff of existential crisis, simply a reminder that boys just want to have fun. When three of them decide to abscond to the Maspalomas Pride in Spain, an exuberantly bacchanalian event where they will be ridiculously old — but better late than never — they contrive to leave their respective mothers with Edward, the most dutiful son of them all, for three impossible days.
Edward (James McArdle, giving a performance that is the closest thing in movies to a cuddle) is a writer whose YA novel about a young gay boy has had rave reviews and is about to hit the ultimate market, the United States. His mother Alma (the eternally formidable Fionnula Flanagan) has a degenerative illness that has left her unable to speak. She remains sharp, however, delivering her zingers on an iPad in the voice of an AI bot. She is not keen to share her small home with three women she doesn’t know, each of whom is impossible in her own way. Too bad: they were left on the doorstep, a done deal. Edward gives up his bed for one of the ladies and settles into carers’ purgatory.
Meanwhile, his publishers have arranged a whistle-stop book tour through the US. Ann Patchett is booked to do an on-stage interview. He’ll be on chat shows. Except, as he keeps saying to them weakly, he doesn’t really think he can go, not with his mother the way she is. Meanwhile, the lads sent pictures of themselves being festive. It’s all very vanilla, although the most recently “out” of the group does send a WhatsApp selfie asking if he doesn’t look too silly in a leather harness. He does, obviously.
Four Mothers is based on an Italian comedy by Gianni Di Gregorio called Mid-August Lunch, which had hitherto resisted several efforts to adapt it as an English-language story. Thornton and his brother and co-writer Colin loved the original film, but were able to put a different spin on it with their own lived experience. Coincidentally, they had both just moved home to be with their own mother, whose reliance on an iPad to “speak” — often very incoherently, given her shaky spelling — was frustrating but also the source of much comic relief in the stressed Thornton household. The year they spent with their mother is wound into this story, giving the glow of the cheeky golden girls story a slight rub of real rust.
Thornton, along with DOP Tom Comerford, also tailors a visual style that wards off excessive cuteness: the color palette is determinedly muted, the women no more glamorous than they would or should be, the skies seemingly always gray. But the story arcs gently into a grab-bag of happy endings. The women bond, as you know from the outset they will, as they talk about their missing husbands (“You’d love to see them walking through the door, asking for their dinner”) and thrill to the idea of visiting an online tarot reader in Galway, six hours’ drive way. Niamh Cusack gives a marvelous cameo performance as the medium, whose fraudulence is neither affirmed nor denied; as she stares into the corner to commune with hovering spirits, you want to believe in her. It’s all very charming, which is fortunate because it is clearly intended to charm us. A film probably best enjoyed with that aforementioned cup of tea, I’d say — and forget the bondage harness. A snuggly blanket would be so much nicer.
Title: Four Mothers
Festival: London (Official Competition)
Sales agent: MK2
Director: Darren Thornton
Screenwriters: Darren Thornton, Colin Thornton,
Cast: James McArdle, Fionnula Flanagan, Dearbhla Molloy
Running time: 1 hr 39 mins