Peter Viney's Blog

Directed by Eva Husson
Screenplay by Alice Birch
Based on the novella by Graham Swift
2021
Now on Amazon Prime

CAST

Odessa Young – Jane Fairchild
Josh O’Connor – Paul Sheringham
Colin Firth – Mr Godfrey Niven
Olivia Coleman – Mrs Carrie Niven
Sope Dirisu – Donald
Glenda Jackson – older Jane Fairchild
Patsy Ferran – Milly
Charlie Oscar – Ethel
Emma D’Arcy- Emma Hibday
Simon Shephard – Giles Hobday
Caroline Harker- Sylvia Hobday
Craig Crosbie – Mr Sheringham
Emily Woof – Mrs Sheringham

It pays to advertise? I’ve never had so many Facebook and e-mail adverts for a film. So much so that I was getting fed up with them. Karen looked at the cast and reviews and said, ‘It won’t be any good.’ I’m more susceptible to advertising, so we watched it.

One review mentioned “British acting royalty” which may mean rather “British actors acting royalty.” Olivia Coleman was Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, while Josh O’Connor played her son, Prince Charles. He has the ears for it. Colin Firth played the Queen’s father, George VI in The King’s Speech. Glenda Jackson may be the best-known Queen Elizabeth I.

Mothering Sunday was a church festival unrelated to selling a bit of card with a bad drawing of a flower on for £3.99 for “Mother’s Day.” That celebration only dates back to 1907, and was developed when Hallmark started selling cards for it in the 1920s. The UK still sticks to the religious origins, so that it is the fourth Sunday in Lent, a moveable feast in March, this year the 27th March. The USA’s even more commercial day is the second Sunday in May.

The origin of Mothering Sunday is in the Middle Ages, and you returned to your ‘mother church,’ the one where you were baptised. It developed and changed so that instead, it became a day when living-in servants were allowed a Sunday off to visit their families … and go to the mother church with them.

This film is set in 1924, with the aftermath of the Great War looming. There are three wealthy families, The Nivens, The Sheringhams and The Hobdays though in spite of their huge baronial mansions with mile long drives, they seem to be down to just a couple of young girls each as servants. The title is true to the British definition of Mothering Sunday. The servants have time off to visit their families, while the wealthy go off together to The Swan at Henley for lunch instead. No chance of rustling up a meal themselves.

At Henley, they elect to sit outside on the lawn, the women in frocks. Think about that. This is England. It would probably be in March. No one sat outdoors to eat in March. They still don’t … unless they are obeying Covid regulations.

Jane Fairchild (Odessa Young) is one of the Niven’s two servants. She is an orphan so elects for a bike ride on Mothering Sunday, having no parents to visit. Her real mission is to spend the morning shagging Paul Sheringham (Josh O’Connor) as his house is also deserted for Mothering Sunday. Paul is about to be married to Emma Hobday, who is waiting for him grumpily at the three family lunch in Henley.

The families have lost sons in the Great War. Paul is a lone survivor .I won’t spoil the plot, but through an interminable number of flash forwards and a few flashbacks too, we establish that Jane and Paul have been having it off for years, and that Jane likes books, will go to work in a bookshop, become a famous writer, and marry a philosopher, Donald . The Donald romance and era is still Odessa Young, but with red lipstick instead of none as befitted a servant. Then Jane Fairchild as an ancient award winning author is Glenda Jackson.

So, without plot spoilers. My summing up.

Basically this is Downton Abbey with full-frontal nudity, male and female and lots of it.

It is so much like Downton Abbey that a major character ends in exactly the same way.

Be aware that Olivia Coleman has just one decent line in the whole thing, but does an excellent “sitting looking miserable in a hat” routine. Her decent line is memorable though.

Until the very end, Glenda Jackson has had just one appearance of a few seconds.

Colin Firth does kind, rather sad, avuncular elder man impeccably, but that’s a given.

Jane spends hours wandering around the Sheringham mansion after Paul leaves, as naked as the day she was born. We see a lot of her bum. The shots are reminiscent of the housemaster’s wife in Lindsay Anderson’s If …. walking around the empty boarding house starkers, though Odessa Young has a perter bottom.

Paul spends rather too long revealing dangly bits while putting his shirt on. However the pace is so slow, I guess they needed something to spice it up.

It is slow, and it is extremely disjointed because it flashes back and forth so often with no marker device.

The cigarette smoking count is wildly excessive.

The good bits with Jane bright and cheerful on her bike, or the wonderful house interior, or the bookshop, the lawn at Henley or any of the large shots are not online on IMDB. Weirdly there are way more shots of Jane and Donald, which to me is a minor flash-forward subplot.

The focus on various bodily fluids on sheets and underwear is at an unprecedented level for me, perhaps I’ve had a sheltered life. So had the younger Jane. She didn’t know what some stains were early on.

The screenwriter is inordinately fond of You shall … and You shan’t …

It’s had some fulsome 5 star and 4 star reviews.

In the end though, Karen was quite right.

It isn’t very good.

**