★★★
A portrait of the artist L.S. Lowry and the relationship with his mother, who tries to dissuade him from pursuing his passion.
Classification: PG
Anchored by two powerhouse performances from Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Spall, Mrs Lowry & Son feels more like a stage play than a film as frustrating editing mars the story's intended effect. With the story mainly taking place in the Lowry home and especially within Mrs Lowry's bedroom, there the feeling of uncomfortable routine and entrapment consumes L.S. Lowry's life as he lives in servitude to his mother and his career is in service to absolve his late father's debt. Through an annoying overabundance of crossfade editing and narration, Spall can convey Lowry's passion for painting claiming that his painting is all he is but the film works best when his insecurities, frustrations and tragic relationship with his mother are put forth unencumbered by these cinematic devices. Adrian Noble's direction of the story itself is strong when focused solely on Spall and Redgrave's performances but his attempts to make the film more visually engaging have the opposite effect and do more to distract the audience than enthral them.
The editing is where the film falls apart as the constant need to crossfade in the imagery of memories, artistic inspirations and dreams against Spall and Redgrave's dialogue just becomes obnoxious. Noble's background as a theatre director seems to have given him insecurity on how to tell the film's visual story and instead of relying on more subtle imagery or his actor's body language just goes for broke and goes for multiple exposures which just crowd the frame and rob the scene of their dramatic weight. While scenes outside the Lowry house such as L.S. Lowry playing games with the town children or hiking to sketch an industrial scene show Noble's potential in creating interesting visuals, his and editor Chris Gill's reliance on this aggravating technique makes the final product less enjoyable.
What salvages the poor technical choices of the film is in its performers and how the script builds the complicated relationship between the two characters. Redgrave as the hypocritical overbearing Mrs Elizabeth Lowry is fantastic giving a great juxtaposition of frail and malicious as her contempt for her life, her late husband, and her son's failures have left a bitter old woman who believes she deserves a better standard of life. She's a former socialite ruined by her husband's failures and debts, now bedridden in an industrial estate that she sees as beneath her. With Lowry's paintings unsuccessful and depicting the very images she despises, Redgrave does not attempt to hide the contempt Mrs Lowry has for her son and when it seems he may begin to find mainstream success, seeks to belittle him for his confidence. The film can create a visceral portrait of the relationship between parent and child as Mrs Lowry wants to maintain control of L.S in every capacity, berating him and praising him simultaneously and keeping him off guard and wanting him to abandon his "hobby" or direct his painting to more "delightful pictures". Her son is the only connection she has to the world until her neighbour pays her a visit and compliments one of L.S's paintings.
With the "approval" from a lady of high standing, Mrs Lowry is now very invested in her son's painting, going as far to call it "her painting" and paying for it to be displayed at a summer art show. It clearly displays the vital difference between the two characters, L.S Lowry had an artistic vision, a unique way of seeing the world and of expressing himself that influenced opinion and conversation whereas his mother is so obsessed with conforming and belonging to upper-class society, her opinion can be easily swayed. The conflicts arise because of this fundamental difference between the two characters; L.S believes in his art, Elizabeth does not. A child who does not have the approval or the respect of his mother and at this point in his life has no real commercial success as a painter. Timothy Spall can portray the frustrations, humility, passion, and a whole plethora of emotions making his performance as L.S Lowry such a captivating one and making him a fine screen partner with Redgrave. He is clearly a man compelled to do one thing and is constantly ridiculed and punished for pursuing his passion, his most daunting critic is also the only one he can never ignore or escape from. L.S sees the opportunity of his mother suddenly liking one his paintings the moment where he can finally connect and resolve the issues he has with his mother but her insincere motivations create more problems between them.
The film as the title suggests puts its focus on the relationship between the two characters but there are still scenes that give insight into L.S Lowry's painting process. Famous paintings of his are featured in the story and serve as crucial plot points in developing the tension between the two characters. The plot centres around two in particular "Sailing Boats" and "Coming from the Mill" but others are referenced, seen or teased but the film doesn't have it be a series of scenes of how he get got his inspirations. Spall and Noble have L.S Lowry portrayed as a humble, simple man essentially "painting what he sees" and capturing his world view in the canvass, finding beauty in what others might find ugly. His painting isn't motivated by his relationship with his mother rather than an instinctual need to paint but it's her consistent disapproval that may have prevented him from success for so long.
A great display of acting from both Redgrave and Spall, the emotional resonance of their dual performances still comes through despite faults in some of the filmmaking. Noble can create the environment that Lowry captured in his artwork quite well and makes the complicated relationship in the film interesting and tragic but his need to need for the editing to be so unsubtle about the memories and visuals of the two characters does serious harm to the good work he had already done. The end of the film, however, leaves you with a portrait of a seemingly simple man who whose life and work had been defined by a very complicated relationship with his mother and despite his claims had more likely affected him far more than he realised.
Director: #AdrianNoble
Cast: #VanessaRedgrave, #TimothySpall
Release Date: August 30th 2019
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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