FilmInk
The film has a small canvas (sorry), and it suffers from a certain determined ordinariness, but it is affecting in other ways.
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Mrs. Lowry & Son
Artist L.S. Lowry (two-time BAFTA nominee Timothy Spall) pursues his artistic ambitions to the chagrin of his domineering mother (Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave) in this British drama based on the stage play of the same name.
"Bed-ridden and bitter, Elizabeth (Redgrave) actively tried to dissuade her bachelor son from pursuing his ambitions, whilst never failing to voice her opinion at what a disappointment he was to her." (British Film Council)
2018Rating: PG, Mild themes and nudity91 minsUK
DramaTrue Story & Biography
- Director:
- Adrian Noble ('The Importance of Being Earnest', 'A Midsummer Night's Dream')
- Writer:
- Martyn Hesford
- Cast:
- Vanessa RedgraveTimothy SpallStephen LordWendy MorganDavid SchaalJohn Alan RobertsJoanne Pearce
Mrs. Lowry & Son / Reviews
FilmInk
The film has a small canvas (sorry), and it suffers from a certain determined ordinariness, but it is affecting in other ways.
Full reviewNew Zealand Listener
It’s exhausting and unkind, and you start to long for more scenes of Lowry just picking up a brush and watching his paint dry.
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Sydney Morning Herald
The movie's origins in a play are fairly clear. As ever in films about great painters, the work takes second place to the details of his daily life. There's more soup than paint here.
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Stuff
Spall and Redgrave excavate every iota of meaning from the pages and get it shimmering up on the screen. In lesser hands, maybe Mrs Lowry and Son could have been a mite depressing, or even worse, "worthy". There's no danger of that here. In its best moments, this film crackles.
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The Times
Within three or four short exchanges she establishes Mrs Lowry as one of the great maternal monsters of cinema, up there with Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest or Piper Laurie in Carrie.
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Independent
Under the direction of theatre veteran Adrian Noble, it's an often stiff and unadventurous affair.
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Daily Telegraph
It cushions itself with needless amounts of nagging music, and winds up giving us a dainty little tour of the Lowry museum in Salford, where we can presumably expect the DVD to be sold until kingdom come.
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Los Angeles Times
If often sad and unsettling, the film is also livelier and less oppressive than it may sound thanks to the fine writing, deft direction by Adrian Noble, and the superb, if painful interplay between Redgrave and Spall.
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Variety
Both Spall and Redgrave feel stifled and stiff-jointed, hemmed in by a thin, shallow-focus script that betrays its origins as a radio play all too easily.
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Time Out
It all feels like an uneventful, overly stuffy approach to a painter who was, after all, considered outlandishly strange.
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