Back in the day, a typical film was rarely longer than your average spin class. They seldom went over 90-minutes, a constraint that pushed directors and writers to tell more efficient stories and structure their movies to be lean, mean, 90-minute entertainment machines — but, these days, that’s a bit of a lost art.
So, when a shorter movie comes along, my curiosity is peaked, and my hope for the return for the quality 90-minute movie is set alight. And luckily, my wish was swiftly granted.
Four Mothers is Darren Thornton’s joyous return to cinema after a nine-year hiatus following his acclaimed debut feature A Date for Mad Mary, co-written with his brother and frequent collaborator Colin Thornton.
The pair re-team here for this buoyant, heart-warming and often naughty tale that, even before the first shot, hits the ground running with a frenzied, jumpy voiceover from Edward (Glasgow-born James MacArdle) preparing for a crucial interview to promote his new book.
Edward a promising queer YA novelist, though finding any sort of work-life balance is proving rather impossible. With the public speaking side of his job bringing on panic attacks, his personal life languishing in limbo, and his mother Alma (Fionnula Flanagan) recovering from a recent stroke, Edward is stretched mightily thin.
Assuming the position of her chief carer, theirs is a tricky relationship bathed in laugh-out-loud comedy that, much like Pansy’s way of coping in Hard Truths, hides a multitude of undisclosed pain. Even as Edward carefully helps Alma dress in the morning, go to the toilet and eat breakfast — all whilst a flurry of demands spout from her iPad speech assistant — he’s staving off a panic attack about the upcoming interview, and a dreaded American book tour.
Their bond is the film’s central core, as is Edward’s dilemma to either seize his destiny on the US tour or stay home and take care of his mum. These are such impressively strong foundations that I found myself hanging on Edward’s every word, and Alma’s every finely-tuned facial expression.
At first, you don’t expect a fuzzy comedy to feature such a nuanced depiction of how complex a mother and son relationship can be, but the Thornton brothers use our expectations against us — even their characters aren’t safe from the script being flipped.
So, eventually the film opens up to explore Edward’s wider life, which sees him pining after his mothers gorgeous physio Raf (Gaetan Garcia), who just so happens to be his ex-boyfriend (complicated!), and touching base with his three friends who, after caring for their elderly mothers threatens to drive them insane, book a spur of the moment trip to a Pride event in Las Palomas, leaving their octogenarian ‘mams’ in the questionably capable hands of Edward.
It’s a fantastic premise for a happy-go-lucky caper, though from Edward’s perspective it seems like a twisted Murphy’s Law: anything that can complicate his life, absolutely will. And the titular four mothers aren’t happy about the sudden change, either. When we meet Jean (Dearbhla Malloy), Maude (Stella McCusker), and Rosey (Paddy Glynn) we don’t expect them to be elderly misfits, constantly pushing buttons and boundaries.
They’re more capable than their sons let on, but Edward is still forced to fetch and carry the four golden girls through three meals a day, doctors appointments and out of the blue adventures to far-off fortune tellers – Thornton isn’t about to make anything easy for him.
The result of punishing Edward and making his life hell is a terrific jaunt over one chaotic weekend in Dublin. Although, these tare-your-hair-out situations are more convenient to Edward than he’s willing to admit: embarking on an international publicity tour isn’t easy, so burying your head in the proverbial sand means he doesn’t have to confront his fears.
On some level, most of us will identify with Four Mothers. Be that from caring for our own elderly family members or choosing to turn a blind eye to what’s really eating us in life, the film tenderly speaks to those human parts that comedies rarely touch, and if they do it’s never as skillfully as this.
Thornton and Thornton have crafted a charm-filled delight here, though to omit that it’s also a hard-hitting, emotionally changed film would be to ignore how multidimensional it is. I was left with a smile, and a lesson — all hail the 90-minute movie!
— Four Mothers is in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from 4th April, and on BFI Player and Blu-Ray in June
Reviewed at Glasgow Film Festival 2025
