MOTHERING SUNDAY

UK 2021, 110 min Director Eva Husson

A final tryst with a well-born lover is the bittersweet memory a woman carries, the pathway to her successful writing career, in Eva Husson’s erotically tinged adaptation of Graham Swift’s prize-winning novel. While the Nivens and the Sheringhams picnic to celebrate mothers—despite both families losing sons during World War I—the Nivens’ maid Jane (Odessa Young) enjoys a stolen afternoon with the surviving Sheringham scion, Paul (Josh O’Connor). Jamie Ramsay’s lush, glorious cinematography underscores not just the beauty of the English countryside but also the naked carnality of the film’s gorgeous young lovers. Colin Firth and Olivia Colman are stunning as the Nivens, whose years-long grief remains fresh, and 85-year-old Glenda Jackson adds a sardonic cameo as elderly Jane. Young rivets as a confident young woman ready to rise above her station in this astonishing drama that weaves through Jane’s life but keeps returning to this day when what begins with such sensual promise takes an abrupt turn. –Pam Grady