Less sexy and more snore-inducing, the new romance Mothering Sunday has everything it needs to be a hit movie. Yet the all-star cast can’t overcome a slow, unoriginal and confusing script that shouldn’t have been made into a movie in the first place.
Based on a novel of the same name, the story is of now-successful author Jane Fairchild (played by Odessa Young for most of the film) recounting her days as a teenage serving girl in England some years after WWI.
Her life follows a romance that summer with Paul (The Crown’s Josh O’Connor) while serving the Niven family (Colin Firth and Olivia Colman) and her life after leaving that job. Stories told in three timelines simultaneously can be hard to follow, and knowing whether it’s the 1920s, 50s or 90s makes it hard to appreciate the intricacy of Jane’s secret romance.
True, most of it is set during one sultry summer in 1924 - but most of the plot’s major events happen in later times. That first story gets half the cumulative run time, yet it's only really the inciting incident: how will serving girl Jane cope with rich boy Paul having to marry someone else?
Having the timeline split and regularly shifting is also annoying because Jane’s primary love interest and co-star only exits in one of the three timelines. This severely limits O’Connor’s time on screen to influence the character of Jane, including both how she feels and why her time with him is so inspiring.
It poses a central question: with the non-linear structure so devoid of major events, was the novel Mothering Sunday ever actually a good candidate to adapt for film?
My answer is no. Readers control the pace they experience reading a book, and they can re-read passages to understand the timeline better if its ever unclear. Audiences of a movie don’t have that control, and choices like having Young play both teenage and middle aged Jane make differentiating timelines even harder.
One of the defining characteristics of Eva Husson’s films is her unapologetic depiction of sex and the how it appears in the “every day.” But here, with such a thin plot, the dozen or so extended conversations with Jane and Paul in the nude are gratuitous.
The technical craftsmanship is excellent in all regards, from the detailed costuming and cinematography to the grandiose yet comforting musical score. But like the story it's supporting, all the technique feels unoriginal, like they’re merely a continuation of countless English period romances that came before.
For casual moviegoers, what’s most disappointing is how underused both Colin Firth and Olivia Colman are. Despite the pedigree of hiring two Oscar winners to play principal characters, neither of them get anything particularly interesting to do.
How bad does it get? There were four different scenes where Firth’s character begins the conversation with “It’s just the loveliest day, isn’t it?” and it being the true nature of what he wants to talk about. Colman gets a single scene in which she breaks down in tears upset that she’s lost her sons in the great war, but this subplot is then never addressed again.
Mothering Sunday is occasionally sexy, occasionally nuanced and occasionally resonant. But Husson’s romance is too slow and confusing to engage or stand out from another, interchangeable period film.
Mothering Sunday
4 out of 10
18A, 1hrs 48mins. Romance.
Directed by Eva Husson.
Starring Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor, Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Colin Firth and Olivia Colman.
Available for TIFF digital rental on Friday, September 17, with tickets and rentals available here. Opens in theatres everywhere Friday, November 19, 2021.
One last thing: it's a small detail, but I did really like the final scene with acclaimed actress Glenda Jackson making one heckuva cameo as older Jane. It's too bad we only see her twice in the whole movie - she's the best part.
Want to read reviews for more TIFF films? Reviews for more than 100 titles this year are and/or will be available here on Tyler Collins' personal website throughout the festival.
