Drama Mothering Sunday is filled with a week’s worth of rich performances.
Critic's Pick.
By Anne T. Donoghue, Globe and Mail April 6, 2022
Odessa Young’s work with her ever-changing (and aging) character Jane Fairchild succeeds in bringing a complicated and resilient character to life in Mothering Sunday.
To frame a film around a writer can be tricky: writing is as solitary as it is tedious. Fortunately, Mothering Sunday, a heart-wrenching drama directed by Eva Husson and based on the novel by Graham Swift, shows that people are more than what they do. They are also the sum of their traumas.
Set mostly in 1924, the story explores a secret affair between housemaid Jane (Odessa Young) and aristocrat Paul (Josh O’Connor). Following the First World War, Paul is the last surviving son of his family, and the son of a family friend of Jane’s employers (Colin Firth and Olivia Colman). And while Paul’s upcoming wedding is meant to mark joy, the compounded grief is still too smothering. At least for everybody but Jane. In the wake of her own grief, she rejects the oppression of her class and finds solace in storytelling – an avenue through which her sorrow is worked out.
Triumphantly, Young’s work with her ever-changing (and aging) character succeeds in bringing a complicated and resilient character to life.
Emma D’Arcy as Emma Hobday, Odessa Young as Jane Fairchild and Josh O’Connor as Paul Sheringham in Mothering Sunday.
Watch: Mothering Sunday Official Trailer
Tim Roth gives performance of his career in cruel but crafty drama Sundown
Critic's Pick.
By Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail April 4, 2022
Tim Roth in Sundown
While on vacation with his family at a high-class Mexican resort, the British slaughterhouse magnate Neil (Tim Roth) seems adrift from his surroundings. Something is off, but not necessarily in that typical middle-aged crisis manner.
When Neil’s family has to suddenly head back home to attend a funeral, Neil makes up an excuse about losing his passport, and quickly decides to make a new life outside his bubble of privilege. As his family beg him to come home, Neil loses himself in cheap bars and seedy hotels, eventually starting an affair with a young local (Iazua Larios).
Director Michel Franco sells his story with just the right amount of malice, while Roth (who reunites here with his Chronic director) manages to find a peculiar amount of pain in a man sleepwalking through life. It might be the best work of the actor’s long career – or at least the most carefully controlled.
If you’re still curious, the film’s slender running time should help seal the pitch.
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