Four Mothers (15) |Close-Up Film Review

Adapted from Italian director Gianni Di Gregorio’s 2008 film Mid-August Lunch and convincingly relocated to Dublin by director Darren Thornton and his brother Colin, this works effectively and amusingly as a very Irish tale. 

Edward – Scottish actor James McArdle with what sounds to me certainly a very convincing Irish accent – is about to embark on a tour to promote his new Young Adult novel – and he’s terrified.  He’s also the sole carer of his elderly mother Alma (Fionnula Flanagan), a feisty lady, who is recovering from a stroke, which has deprived her of her voice.  That doesn’t stop her though.  She’s got a voice generating device on her tablet, which she uses with vicious determination.   Edward is gay, as is his therapist Dermot (Rory O’Neill) and his two best friends, Billy (Gordon Hickey) and Colm (Gearóid Farrelly).   Coincidentally they too all have elderly mothers, for whom they’re caring.  

Some friends these though.  Without warning the three of them swan off to a Gay Pride event holiday in Spain, dumping their mothers unannounced on Edward on the way to the airport for him to look after– an act of treachery which is never addressed in the events that follow.   Because this is where the fun really begins.

The visiting mums are as feisty in their different ways as Alma.  Jane (Dearbhla Molloy) is a bit of a misery, though later on, when we find out why, we warm to her.  Maude (Stella McCusker) is a bit on the shy side, while Rosie (Paddy Glynn) is her opposite. 

Interestingly – a sign of the times we now live in – they all accept, albeit reluctantly, the fact that their sons are gay.   So too is Alma’s physiotherapist, the very good looking Raf (Gaetan Garcia), who happens to be Edward’s ex-lover. 

The brothers Thornton milk to the full the comic  possibilities of Edward trying to cope with the mothers’ various requirements, from hospital appointments to food faddiness and McArdle is very engaging in his efforts to please them all.  But there’s also a layer of sweet sadness underneath, particularly in the “might have been” relationship between Edward and Raf and in the reality of the four mothers themselves.  

Because in the four women we can see echoes of the confident and pretty young women they once were, highlighting the cruelty of old age, which robs us not only of youth and beauty but of strength, health and mobility.