Parky At the Pictures (4/4/2025)

(Reviews of Four Mothers; and Restless)

FOUR MOTHERS.

Gianni Di Gregorio's sublime Italian comedy, Mid-August Lunch (2008), didn't really need remaking. If it had to be rejigged, however, it's as well that Irish sophomore Darren Thornton has taken on the task following his 2016 debut, A Date for Mad Mary. Written with his brother Colin and drawing on their own domestic experiences, Four Mothers has plenty to say about the generational issues that have arisen since Ireland emerged from its conservative Catholic cocoon. But it does so with a wit and wisdom that is deftly tinged with a hint of sadness.

Left without speech following a stroke, 81 year-old Alma Brady (Fionnula Flanagan) communicates with carer son Edward (James McArdle) using a voice programme on her iPad. She can get caustic, even when he is doing an interview with an American radio station promoting his YA novel about being a gay teenager in modern Ireland. Pals Colm (Gearoid Farrelly) and Billy (Gordon Hickey) have similar problems and they discuss them while their mothers, Jean (Dearbhla Molloy) and Maude (Stella McCusker), attend Mass at the local church.

When he tries to broach the subject of a two-week book tour with his therapist, Dermot (Rory O’Neill), Edward gets frustrated when the older man makes the session all about his woes since coming out and getting divorced. More sympathetic is his ex-boyfriend, Rafael (Gaetan Garcia), who is also Alma's physical therapist. However, he's planning to move abroad with his new partner and Edward wonders how he's going to cope.

His situation is exacerbated when Colm and Billy decamp to the Gran Canaria for the Maspalomas Winter Pride gathering and deposit their mothers in his suburban Dublin home. As he was hoping to go on a two-week promotional tour of the United States, Edward had thought about sending Alma to his married brother in London. But she refuses to go and he has misgivings about billeting her in a home while he's away. But things get worse when Dermot also heads to Spain and leaves mother Rosey (Paddy Glynn) in Edward's care.

Forced to sleep in the car because Alma won't let him bring a sleeping bag into her room, Edward finds himself juggling dietary demands and various appointments with little co-operation from his mother or their guests. Maude attends a funeral and helps out afterwards, despite not knowing the deceased. Jean grumpily agrees to use a walker after a physio session, while Rosey boasts about her online boyfriend and Rafael (who has agreed to drive them around in his mini-bus) teases Edward when they assess the shortcomings of Irish men as lovers.

Alma is dismayed to discover that her son requires a therapist and tells the others what an important author he is to help boost his esteem. As the screen splits to show Edward's busy morning, he gets video messages from the Spanish jamboree and stern reminders from his publicist about selling the book in interviews as a love story for young gay readers and not a diatribe on post-colonial Ireland and its socio-religious hang-ups.

Already feeling stressed, Edward gets nervous about a mock interview on Zoom and confides his fears to Rafael. He had given the women palm readings and prompted them to share memories of their late husbands. When Edward had reminded them that they had waited on them hand and foot for little gratitude, they wave away his protests and concur that loneliness is hell. Feeling alone when Rafael hugs him, Edward steals a kiss and instantly regrets making things awkward. However, his main concern is that Jean has taken a taxi home in the middle of the night and he has to bring her back from a karaoke bar. She makes him take a swig from her bottle and tells him to stop badmouthing his father in front of Alma, as couples of their generation rubbed along in spite of the insults and rows. He tries to explain how the ructions impacted on him as a boy, but she dozes off and Edward is left with his neurosis, as he tucks Jean into bed.

The next morning, the women announce that they have booked a meeting with a medium in Galway and Edward is given no option but to pile them into Rafael's bus and head west. En route, Jean reads out the Amazon reviews of his book. When he insists on pulling over to speak to his publicist, Rafael relates how the 17 year-old Edward had flown to Sweden to remeet a man he had met in a bar and Alma butts in that she had traced the number and called to check he was okay. Jean remembers Colm's first romance, while Maude admits that she locked herself in the bathroom when her husband confronted Billy about his sexuality. Having raised her son alone, Rosey is puzzled by her attitude and wishes Dermot had been more honest with himself before he got married and had children.

Arriving shortly after Alma overheard Edward discussing the care home option, the women are warmly greeted by Maura (Niamh Cusack). The mood is broken when she orders a companion to shoot at the pigeons cooing on the roof. But she soon has the women reassured that their spouses are doing fine on the other side. Edward takes exception when Alma complains about being placed in a home and they both have panic attacks after he implores her to stop having such selective memories of a man who mistreated them both. Maura looks on appalled, as Maude and Jean phone a hospital and Rafael strives to calm Edward down. When peace descends, she claims the departed menfolk are standing in the corner singing a ballad.

Pulling over in the mountains so Edward can have his call, Rafael gazes at the scenery with the women. He tells the book people that things are too difficult for him to make the trip and they are frustrated after so much wasted effort. Colm, Billy, and Dermot are waiting when they return and Alma wakes Edward in the night to urge him to live his own life. He questions what the phrase even means, but appreciates his mother clasping his hand as they drive back from Rafael's leaving party.

Of course he goes on the tour and Jean, Maude, and Rosey move in to care for Alma while he's away. We see phone snippets, as the women chatter about Agatha Christie and the jarring sound of American accents (after Edward admits kissing a publishing assistant). They are glad to have company and even Alma can't shut them up.

Adeptly conveying the compromises that carers often have to make and the problems facing Irish gay men of a certain age, this is a film of shrewd insight and gentle warmth. The Thortons shift Di Gregorio's focus to explore Edward's insecurities as a son, an author, and a commitmentphobe and James McArdle responds with a performance that neatly combines emotional authenticity with selfless timing as the straight man (as it were) to his scene-stealing female co-stars.

Paddy Glynn is given the least to do, as the bohemian single mum who is just starting to have trouble remembering things. But Stella McCusker makes Maude ditzily devout (although we never discover why she attends the funerals of strangers), while Dearbhla Molloy adds a bit of working-class embitterment as Jean. But the film belongs to Fionnula Flanagan, whose exceptional occular acting is far more affecting than the more cornball utterances made by her voice app, as she riles against the dependency that has altered her relationship with her son.

While the screenplay largely avoids Oirish mammy clichés, the sons are less adroitly drawn. The swearily whispered exchange in the church pew is clumsily staged (why would they suddenly abandon their mothers to sit together mid-service?), while there's something sitcomedic about their Iberian antics. More excusable are the odd contrivances used to push the story along, although the Galway road trip feels extraneous, in spite of a droll cameo from Niamh Cusack. Edward's lingering longing for Rafael also sits awkwardly, as his efforts to prevent him from leaving for a new life make him seem pathetically needy and self-serving rather than the sweet chap he evidently is. But these are minor grumbles with a film that raises issues and smiles with equal facility.

RESTLESS.

In the week that Barry Keoghan was announced to play Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes's Beatle tetralogy, devotees of the Irish actor will note that Jed Hart, the director of Candy Floss, the short Keoghan headlined back in 2016, has finally completed his feature bow, Restless.

As we flashback a week from Nicky (Lyndsey Marshal) wielding a shovel in the darkness after a long drive into the country, we see her stressing as an overworked care worker at an understaffed old people's home. She's also upset because someone has just moved into the semi-detached house where her recently deceased parents had lived. Reassuring student son Liam (Declan Adamson) that she'll get used to the idea - in spite of a sleepless night because of loud partying and bonking - she hopes that things will quieten down and she and Reg the cat can resume enjoying her home-baked cakes, classical music, and TV snooker in peace.

Unfortunately, Deano (Aston McAuley) has other plans. When Nicky knocks the next night to ask him to turn down the music, he obliges. But the volume creeps back up and he greets her with abuse when she tries to complain. With the police refusing to take action, she's forced to sleep in her car overlooking the sea. She's woken by her old friend, Kevin (Barry Ward), who makes gauche small talk before giving her his card for future reference and a parking ticket because he's a park ranger.

Unable to persuade any of the neighbours to join her into petitioning the council, Nicky calls Kev for a drink to get away from the din. He offers his condolences for the loss of her father and presents her with a violin, because she likes classical music. When he suggests they go clubbing, she proposes going back to his place and promptly crashes on the bed.

Frustrated in her efforts to wake Deano with a noisy lawnmower, Nicky makes some brownies with the secret ingredient of some dog dirt scraped off her trainers. He noshes them cheerfully and accepts her apology for being stroppy. But not even her new headphones can prevent Reg from sleeping elsewhere or stop the water glass on her bedroom table from vibrating. She goes to chuck a brick through Deano's window, but slumps on her step instead and draws heavily on a cigarette because she's started smoking again for the first time in 18 years.

Waiting for Deano to go out, she uses the spare keys left by her father to break in and destroy his sound system (although she nearly gets caught). Having enjoyed a quiet evening, she disturbed at bedtime by Deano banging on the door and threatening revenge unless she pays for what she vandalised. Unable to sleep, Nicky starts doing a jigsaw, only to doze off and wake with a start from a dream about an intruder.

Crying off work, she frets about Reg going missing and despairs when the incessant pounding resumes. She begs Kev not to interfere when he calls round to check she's okay and blames him for making things worse when he gets punched on the nose. Deano suggests Nicky is losing it when she threatens to kill him if anything has happened to Reg and she seems to trip out as the music booms louder than ever before she cackles with relief when a storm breaks and she stands in the downpour that has drowned out the din.

Thinking she can hear miaowing, Nicky breaks into Deano's through the attic. When she finds the dead cat under a bed, she abducts Clarkey (Denzel Baidoo) when he goes for a slash in the garden and bundles him into the boot of her car. Despite digging a shallow grave, she lets him go when he claims to like tigers, although she threatens to tell his mates that he wet himself if she ever claps eyes on him again.

Spending the night beside Reg's grave, Nicky drives home intent on killing the sleeping Deano with a hammer. However, she finds him in bed with the underage daughter of the estate's hard woman, Jackie (Kate Robbins), and a quick phone call brings her round with some heavies to drive Deano away in his boxers. Resuming her old routine, Nicky calls Kev to apologise and shows him how she's getting on with her violin lessons. They hire a bouncy castle and leap around in slow-motion, as the film ends.

Cannily stepping back from the narrative precipice mischievously signposted in the opening segment, Hart succeeds in imparting a little horror viscerality to his darkly droll slice of social realism. Most will be able to identify with the scourge of noisy neighbours and Hart pushes plausibility to the limit in order to make Nicky's ordeal seem like the stuff of nightmares. The twist feels like something wrenched from a soap script. But it's staged in such a determinedly deadpan manner that it packs a particularly satisfying comedic punch.

Aston McAuley makes a splendidly hissable villain, although he's nowhere near as menacing and malevolent as he might have been. Intriguingly, Nicky feels too aggrieved and fragile from her own recent experiences to make any attempt to discover what had happened to turn Deano into such an anti-social hedonist. Given her nursing background, this seems an oversight - but she would also probably have recognised Jackie's daughter if she was such a prominent figure on the estate.

Stress and sleep deprivation make people do strange things, however, although Nicky seems to get away with quite a bit without repercussions. She does lose her beloved cat, of course, and Hart might have done more to make the poor creature's fate a little less obvious. He might also have shown how the nocturnal tribulations impacted upon her nursing. But this side of Nicky's life is rather swiftly sidelined, while no mention is made of any potentially helpful friends, which seems odd for someone who has clearly lived in the area for some time. Instead, we get the buffoonish decency of Barry Ward's Kev, whose sudden significance to Nicky seems somewhat far fetched.

Nevertheless, Lyndsey Marshal goes from tormented to demented with empathetic credibility, even though it seems unlikely (considering she had nearly run Jackie over days before) that she would view Deano's comeuppance from such close proximity. But she's well directed by Hart, who makes confident use of confined spaces, lighting changes, and tonal shifts to suggest he would be capable of greater things with a tighter script.