A dreary wet weekend awaits

A privileged couple lose two sons in the war, and deprive their last one love. Because she's from a lower class. So it's better that he kills himself. Unbelievable mentally, and the brits just keep rolling the ball 😪

Better than I thought it would be, with great actors even in small parts. Watching a young woman grow her life from maid to a great writer with two great loves along the way.

A lovely movie about love and tragedy. Performances were great and I loved the story. Tim Treakle

Of course this is rated highly. Was literally about nothing and had a random twig creeping around a house naked. Huge fuxking YAWN.

Just felt like I missed something. Too subtle.

Now, when I hear that a movie described as plodding, "Mothering Sunday" will spring to mind.

The pace will put a lot of people off, perhaps, but it worked for me. A slow and visually sumptuous film - the pace seems to echo idleness of the wealthy characters' lives, or maybe it intensifies the depth of what in reality would have been fleeting passionate moments? I can't pinpoint it but it works for a film that goes back and forth in time throughout. This is heightened by a languid score, reflecting the sense of the losses several characters have experienced. Excellent performances by the cast.

Enchanting, slow-moving, poetic, typically English - with the green scenery, the upstairs-downstairs crowds, the value of books and writing. The interplay of different time periods in the life of the protagonists required one to pay attention throughout. Dealt with respect about the quiet despair of parents who have all the riches they need and try to live with some optimism, though they lost their only offspring to the cruelty of war (which they themselves and the like of them were possibly responsible for). And I rarely have seen an actress naked for so long in a sequence of scenes.

Beautifully filmed. Elegaic with a score that was suitably reminiscent of those English composers who didn't make it past 1918 unscathed (think 'Banks of Green Willow'). However, I was left with the feeling that the Director couldn't make up her mind what the film was really about. Class inequity? the decline of the pre-war landed class? the making of a writer? a fated love affair? All of these elements were thrown into the mix but somehow none of them gelled sufficiently to come to anything. The eroticism went on far too long to sustain interest - and why exactly was the naked Odessa Young left wandering round an empty house for so long? There seemed to point to this at all. Colin Firth and Olivia Colman were wasted - having said that, it was left to Olivia Colman to put in the best performance in touching on the one element of the film that might have meant something - the parental mourning for the loss of a generation of young men during the Great War. For a few brief moments it looked as though the film was suddenly going to burst into life - but no, it plodded back to a slumbrous ending that seemed even less convincing, even with a few words from a half-hearted Glenda Jackson!

A beautiful movie, great performances, well directed, WW1 and loss themes. Gorgeous colour palette. Wish I'd watched it sooner, Netflix trailer let it down. Brought back memories of picnics at Henley when my daughters were young.

Tedious, shallow and affected. A series of cliched concepts poorly lumped together to no good purpose.

Overall, this is a tragic drama with some touching moments within its story.  It's a film with strong visuals, a well-fitting and touching audio track, and side performances, including Colin Firth and Olivia Colman, that are unintentionally scene-stealing.  But unfortunately, as a drama, I found the first act hollow and rushed to present uninteresting leads.  The first act's high volume of uncomfortable nudity and sex scenes didn't feel warranted.  Granted, as the film progressed, my investment and interest rose but sadly, by the time I felt a great impact in this story, it wasn't long until the credits began to scroll down the big screen.  Those who enjoy love stories that feel naughty and are filled with sex, drama and tragedy will obtain a pleasant experience.

This film is beautifully directed and acted, superb performances from all the cast, young and older, a paean to the English countryside and its ghosts. A mood piece, and a heartrending essay on the terrible legacy of war.

Bitter sweet and tender.

Mothering Sunday (2022) is a slow-paced, sensuous, period romance set in the years following World War I. Based on a novel by Graham Swift, the film centres on Jane Fairchild (Odessa Young), a young woman working as a maid in an English country manor. Jane is in love with Paul (Josh O'Connor), the son of the house's owners, but he is betrothed to another woman. When Jane is given the day off on Mother's Day, she and Paul spend the day together, their passion reigniting. However, events take a turn that will change both of their lives forever. The acting by both Young and O'Connor is excellent, and they have a natural chemistry that makes their scenes together sizzle. The movie is let down by the pace, which is slow and leisurely to the point of being sluggish. The dialogue is often stilted, and the characters seem to exist in a bubble, completely cut off from the harsh realities of the world outside. And be warned, inside this "bubble", there are multiple sex scenes, full-frontal nudity, and adult themes. So, if any of these offend you, you may wish to choose not to see the movie. Overall, though, Mothering Sunday is a beautifully shot film that will satisfy fans of romance novels and movies. Just don't expect anything too ground-breaking. If you can manage the slow pace, Mothering Sunday is a beautiful and heart-wrenching love story.

At times it felt more like a painting than a film. Beautifully shot and acted with restraint. Odessa Young is great in the lead and carries the film as it moves along slowly. I liked it, but I was in the mood for calm having not fully recovered from Top Gun.

I absolutely loved the understated excellence of this film. Quiet, slow-paced but engrossing. Beautifully acted, written and shot.

I absolutely LOVED this movie. Especially the cinematography.....how it was so beautifully captured and each shot was carefully constructed as if it were a piece of art. I read the book on Kindle the morning before I saw the film which really helped pull the story along nicely. Recommend reading the book first and then going to see the film. Kudos to the filmmakers. A nice way to spend a Saturday evening for sure!

Mothering Sunday is one of the most expertly crafted films that I've seen in a very long time. Luminous, slowly-paced and beautifully edited, it constructs the ways in which the memory works. Most flashbacks in movies happen in short bursts or long narratives, but the director Eva Husson and the writer Alice Birch (adapting a novel by Graham Swift) understand that memories are sculpted and hewn down by time, sanded down to the peak elements that our subconscious wants to remember. This film is constructed that way. The wind through a yard, the squeak of a bicycle, the curves on a lover's lips, the poetry of someone's voice that probably wasn't as polished when they were actually speaking. For Jane (Odessa Young) there were key moments long ago, remembering England in the 1920s just after the war. She worked as a maid for a wealthy family, always on the outside looking in. In her station, wrought by class distinction, she is an occupational observer of the lives of the wealthy never to be privileged enough to be in their company but always required to hover around them. She is a keeper of their secrets while also harboring a desire to be a writer. She, it turns out, held onto a secret of her own. For a number of years, she carried on a sexual affair with Paul Sharingham (Josh O'Conner who plays a much different role here than he does as the insecure Prince Charles on "The Crown") the last surviving son of an aristocratic family. He is the son of a family that is very good friends with her employers Godfrey and Clarrie Niven (Colin Firth and Olivia Colman). Naturally, it comes to pass that Paul must be married to a woman of his station, a ball of emotional frustration named Emma Hobday (Emma D'Arcy). These memories are important as they are looked back on over many years that are covered by cause and effect of things that happened then, then in the 40s and then when she is an old woman in the 1980s (played all-too-briefly by Glenda Jackson). Buy why was this one day in 1924 so important? It was Mother's Day and there is a reason that she keeps returning to it. Much of this (and I'm not giving away the specifics) have to do with the time. This was England in the 1920s, the years just following The Great War when almost every family in Europe was grappling with the loss of a son, a brother, a father, a cousin, a nephew, a friend. Jane remembers the mourning shock still present on everyone's faces – rich and poor – still in deep sorrow for someone who is never coming home. Jane's memories throughout the years are very specific, and very much hewed down to their core. She remembers the highlights and only specific details that are sometimes disjointed but make up a cohesive whole – we can fill in the blanks. All of it is very effective at creating a tapestry of how her mind works looking back over several years but unfortunately this is not a great film. The emotional weight of what Jane was experiencing and what she remembers don't land in a way that leaves an impact on you. When it is over you've seen an expertly crafted film that doesn't pull at the heart in the way that it probably should.