Parky At the Pictures (4/4/2025)

(Reviews of Four Mothers; Mr Burton; Sebastian; 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.

MR BURTON.

At various points in his eclectic career, director Marc Evans has riffed on the land of his birth. A Welshman fell foul of the American Dream in House of America (1997), while a teacher struggled to make her mark in a Swansea comprehensive school in Hunky Dory (2011). Now, a decade after he celebrated the Toshack years in Jack to a King - The Swansea Story (2014), he revisits the youth of Port Talbot's favourite son in Mr Burton.

As the radio broadcasts the latest news about the war, Philip Henry Burton (Toby Jones) teaches English at a school in Port Talbot. Among his students is 17 year-old Richie Jenkins (Harry Lawtey), who lives with his older sister, Cecilia (Aimée-Ffion Edwards) and her miner husband, Elfed James (Aneurin Barnard), because there's no room for him in Pontrhydyfen with his widowed, hard-drinking, gambler father, Dic (Steffan Rhodri), and his remaining 11 siblings. When not teaching, Burton writes radio scripts for the BBC and enjoys trips to the cinema with his landlady, Ma Smith (Lesley Manville).

As he has noticed that Jenkins has a gift for poetry, Burton invites him to join his YMCA drama group after Elfed forces him to take a job in the Co-op haberdashery department to bring in a weekly wage. He also secures his re-instatement at school and cuts him slack so he can earn money doing odd jobs before the first bell. When he has spare time, Burton (who had met Eddie Cantor and Dorothy Lamour in Hollywood) takes Richie into the hills overlooking the town to teach him how to enunciate and project.

When Burton suggests that Ritchie takes Ma's spare room, he consults Cis first to ensure she approves and to stop gossip about bond he has with the boy. Ma teaches him table manners, while Burton keeps him studying after he plays Henry Higgins in Pygmalion. He also gets him to join the RAF cadets and pulls strings to have him considered for a scholarship to Oxford.

Puzzled as to why Burton keeps having his stage plays rejected, Richie learns that he has only had work broadcast on the local Welsh service. However, he knows actor-director Emlyn Williams and promises to put in a good word when he advertises for aspiring actors for a forthcoming production of The Druid's Nest in Cardiff. Moreover, he offers to adopt him to facilitate his Oxford application and Richie is appalled when Dic agrees to sign the paperwork for £50 and accuses him to being gay.

Having got drunk at his mother's grave, Richie gets home late and accuses Burton of grooming him. Disappointed by the tone, Burton bellows that he has shown faith, borne expense, and devoted time in the hope of some gratitude but nothing more. Ma Smith hears the door slam, as Richie goes to wake classmate ?? (), and prove his manhood in the dunes at dawn. The next morning, she consoles Burton, but remind him that she did warn him about rumours and admits to thinking that he would struggle to smooth off all of Richie's rough edges.

They actually serve him well when he auditions for Daphne Rye (Hannah New) in his RAF uniform and cheeks her when she asks to see his profile. Eight years later, he's even cockier at Stratford, where he refuses to take direction during rehearsals. He also gets into fights with cast members when taunted about his humble origins. Daphne tries to rein him in, but he gets smashed and calls Burton in the small hours of the morning. Ma takes the call and sends her lodger off in a taxi to do his duty by the boy he plucked from obscurity.

Richie has no memory of the call and is surprised to see his mentor after so long. But, even though he already has several stage and screen successes under his belt, he accepts some coaching, even though Burton's approach to Henry IV, Parts One and Two infuriates actor-director, Anthony Quayle (Daniel Evans). They visit William Shakespeare'e grave in Holy Trinity Church and Richie recites some lines in his newly acquired mellifluous tones. However, he resents Burton trying to interfere and drunkenly dismisses him as a nobody when he tries to impose his authority by reminding him of the importance of his performance.

But the sight of Ma in the foyer, thrilled to be able to watch him on stage, rouses Richie to see his folly and he races to the church just before the curtain goes up to thank Burton and apologise for his callous words. He also admits to being scared before dashing back to deliver a star-making turn. When Burton comes to his dressing-room, he hugs him and calls him his father.

Reassuringly old-fashioned in almost every regard, this is the youth of Richard Burton as seen through the prism of the Emlyn Williams play, The Corn Is Green, which was filmed in Hollywood in 1945 by Irving Rapper with Bette Davis as the selflessly inspirational Welsh teacher and John Dall as the mining village ingrate she tutors for the Oxford entrance exam. Screenwriters Tom Bullough and Josh Hyams lean so heavily on this scenario (which conveniently chimes in with the truth) that the action starts to lose its poise and poignancy when the scene shifts to Stratford and they make a less effective fist of comparing the pair to Falstaff and Prince Hal.

The need to bring about this emotional resolution over-extends a film that already feels long and risks lapsing into unintentional comedy when Harry Lawtey finds himself saddled with the thankless task of having to reproduce Burton's distinctive tones after having been allowed to get away with a more generic Welsh accent during the Port Talbot scenes. What is striking, however, is that he looks a lot more like Burton while striking his moody Stratford poses and it's a shame that the writers (who seem unconcerned about the source and evolving nature of the actor's demons) couldn't have slipped in a speech so that Richie could explain (perhaps to Ma Smith) that he has changed a good deal since she last saw him.

No explanation is given for the hiatus, which rather leaves the character of P.H. Burton high and dry, as no attempt is made to explore his feelings during this period or how he occupied his time. Did he keep writing or staging am-dram productions? How did the whisperings about his sexuality impinge upon his status as a schoolmaster? Or do these things not matter so much if an initially pivotal character has served his essential purpose and dutiful slipped into the celebrity's shadow?

This wrenching shift feels rather unfair on Toby Jones, who has striven so earnestly to make P.H. seem empathetic and encouraging, while also being unassuming and selfless - and it's not his fault that (unlike a recent biographer who claimed, with little evidence, the Burton was a paedophile) the scenarists duck the issue of his motives for saving a rugby hunk from proletarian drudgery. Lesley Manville is also short-changed, although Ma is a markedly less complex role and she does well to invest her with a modicum of interiority.

The rest of the Jenkins clan are stock characters, as are the Stratford luvvies. Yet Evans directs with commitment, if rarely with imagination. Stuart Biddlecombe's cinematography and Tim Dickel's production design are equally serviceable, although more might have been made of the privations of wartime poverty and the social leap that the young Richie had to make. Overall, the sense is that of a TV-movie, which is apt given the BBC's involvement and this agreeable biopic would sit well in a double bill with Richard Laxton's Burton and Taylor (2013), which starred Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter and similarly didn't quite hit the mark.

SEBASTIAN.

Based in Britain since his student days, Finn Mikko Mäkelä made his feature debut with A Moment in the Reeds back in 2017. Following a couple of shorts, he returns with his sophomore outing, Sebastian, which has nothing to do with films of the same name produced by Michael Powell in 1968 or directed by Derek Jarman in 1976.

Hailing from Edinburgh, Max Williamson (Ruaridh Mollica) is a twentysomething aspiring writer living in London. He works for the trendy Wall magazine and is thrilled when editor Claudia (Lara Rossi) assigns him an interview with his literary hero, Bret Easton Ellis. However, Max is tired of churning out reviews and short stories and has taken a profile under the name `Sebastian' on DreamyGuys to arrange casual hook-ups with older men to mine for inspiration for a novel he is writing.

When not pumping iron at the gym, Max attends a writer group with workmate Amna (Hiftu Quasem), who always supports him. But she knows nothing about rendezvous with the likes of Daniel (Ingvar Sigurdsson), a businessman with a flat in London and a family in Kent, who is relieved that Sebastian isn't another online fake. However, Max feels a deep shame about what he is doing (which he dismisses when he writes about Sebastian and the pride he takes in his work) and his reluctance to respond to men of his own age.

Publishing editor Dionne (Leanne Best) is encouraging about the novel and suggests giving it a first-person slant. Amna also likes the new chapters, but wonders if the encounters aren't getting a bit samey and tells Max to ask his `digital hustler' contacts about their kinkier experiences to spice things up a bit. Against his better judgement, he responds to an invitation to a group session and one of the men urges him to show his face on DreamyGuys, as he will get more business because he has a wholesome image that belies his raunchiness.

Dionne also badgers Max about having a social media presence, as being a hermitic garret writer no longer butters any parsnips. But Max is so wrapped up in Sebastian's world that he misses a Wall meeting and loses the Ellis interview. Amna is also hurt when he fails to give her feedback on her latest pages and Claudia warns him to buck his ideas up when he bungles an interview with a software designer because Sebastian had a tryst.

Max's dilemma becomes thornier after he meets septuagenarian academic, Nicholas (Jonathan Hyde), who wants to take things slowly and get to know him. When he spots him at a literary gathering, Max gets in a panic in case he approaches and beats an awkward retreat from a chat that Dionne had set up with a couple of influential people. Worse follows when Claudia terminates his freelance gig with Wall and he worries that Dionne will lose interest if his name isn't appearing regularly in trendy mags. Even his mother (Stella Gonet) dismays him when she asks why he always has to write about such personal things and doesn't use his fictional filter more often.

Deciding to become an escort on DreamyGuys to pay his bills, Max starts seeing a lot of Nicholas. He confides about his writing life and learns about the older man's 29-year romance with an American who had died of a stroke three years earlier. Yet, while he feels genuine affection, Max still channels their conversation into his text in an order to explore generational ties within the gay community. Unfortunately, Dionne considers the new material to be dull and asks him to keep the focus on the psyche of the sex worker and not wallow in a sentimental love story.

When Daniel invites him to Brussels, Max breaks his regular date with Nicholas (who has started taking him to the theatre) to keep him company on a business trip. He feels guilty and feigns illness when they got to bed. But Daniel refuses to take no for an answer and is furious when he finds Sebastian's account of the incident on Max's laptop and throws him out of the room without his wallet and computer. When an attempt to pick up a man for money in a bar backfires, Max resorts to phoning Nicholas, who pays for his train ticket home.

Meanwhile, an article on Max as an exciting new author is published in the Evening Standard and his mother calls to tell him how proud she is. Nicholas is also forgiving and thrilled to have inspired such a nice character in the book, which he enjoys. Max continues to see clients under his own name, even though his book is now out and he tells the interviewer at a Q&A at Foyles that she can ask him anything.

Becoming increasingly unpersuasive as it goes along, this overlong drama can't make up its mind whether it's a coming-of age saga, an exploration of auto-fiction, an exposé of the publishing world, or a sex work morality tale. As a consequence, Ruaridh Mollica's otherwise laudable performance loses focus, as Max struggles to decide how alike he and Sebastian actually are.

Mäkelä stages the sex scenes with a blend of thrusting energy and coy discretion that leaves the viewer wondering what Max is feeling and how much (if at all) Sebastian is feigning. The depiction of Daniel and Nicholas feels authentic, although the discovery of the laptop in Brussels is risibly melodramatic, as there is no way someone as guarded and vulnerable as Max would leave `evidence' so carelessly. Moreover, it fizzles out after a tantrum at reception, leaving no repercussions for the duplicity and no sense of jeopardy, as Daniel is in no position to compromise his home life no matter how galled he is at being exploited.

By contrast, the female characters are poorly (almost chauvinistically) drawn and always seem to be nagging Max or expressing disappointment in him or his writing in a way that the urbanely cultivated Nicholas never does because he takes the trouble to get to know the real man rather than the construct. But maybe Dionne has a point about the sentimental turn the plotline takes. And is Max all that good a writer, when he comes up with such purple tosh as, `I carve out my existence in the world using words. They are the footsteps I leave in my wake.'

Reducing the cities to anonymous blurs of neon in keeping the camera close to Mollica's alternatively furtive and impassive face, cinematographer Iikka Salminen does a good job of conveying Max's isolation in his adopted home (he doesn't speak once to his housemates). Similarly, with the exception of Nicholas's tasteful home, Guy Thompson's production design gives the rooms in which the various assignations take place a fotofit blandness to reflect Max's gimlet focus in his Sebastian guise and reinforce how boxed in he's becoming. But, ironically for a treatise on the writing process, it's the storytelling that lets the film down, as the absence of any unexpected twists suggest it's only Max who appears to be writing about what he knows.

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.