Writers: Colin Thornton and Darren Thornton
Director: Darren Thornton
A debut novelists’ life if disrupted when he unexpectedly has to look after the widowed elderly mothers of his best friends while they go on holiday in Colin Thornton and Darren Thornton’s Irish comedy playing in the Official Competition of the BFI London Film Festival 2024. A jolly, if rather predictable, story about parental love and finding your own purpose, Four Mothers is at its best when its very different protagonists are given the screen, but despite its title, it is the male perspective and his rom com outcomes that are prioritised.
Adapted from Mid-August Lunch by Gianni Di Gregorio, writer Edward cares for his mother alone at home following a recent stroke, but the burgeoning success of his young adult novel requires him to go to the USA for 10 days on a book tour. Unable to tell his mother truth, Edwards’s life gets even more complicated when he also takes on the care of his friend’s mothers, jeopardising his career and his chance of a love life to meet their needs.
The Thorntons’ film is full of sharp lines, almost all given to its older female characters who speak their minds openly and brook no opposition from people pleaser Edward. The acerbic style is very enjoyable and fairly consistent throughout Four Mothers that takes a bittersweet scenario and exaggerates it, drawing out as many laughs and silly moments as it can from its four leads being cantankerous, disagreeable and openly rude about everything.
Receiving its world premiere at the Festival, Four Mothers has one of those plot drivers that (sometimes frustratingly) could be resolved in the first 10-minutes if Edward just tells his mother about the book tour. The scale of the reaction for a 10-day visit feels disproportionate to what comes next but if you suspend your initial disbelief then there is fun to be had in the increasingly silly situation that the exasperated Edward finds himself in and the four very different women who frustrate his plans.
Too little time is spent with each of the mothers unfortunately and although there is some backstory about each of their husbands – leading to a very silly trip to a medium (look out for a star cameo in this scene) – the mothers themselves are created in relation to these male characters, foregrounding the needs and problems created by their spouses and sons. With Fionnula Flanagan, Dearbhla Molloy Stella McCusker and Paddy Glynn as the titular mothers each with their own problems, anxieties and, brilliantly, resentments of each other, there is so much more to mine in these relationships without the men in the way.
James McArdle plays the hapless Edward well but only in the movies would a debut young adult novelist receive the kind of acclaim that comes with a publicist team, a sold-out book tour and media interviews. The complexity of being a carer for an invalided parent is beginning to come through in the Thornton’s film and lots of the jokes land, we just need to see more of the mothers who inspired it all.
Four Mothers is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2024.
