Four Moth­ers review – can­ny crowd-pleaser

Here’s an unex­pect­ed remake. Back in 2008, the Ital­ian writer/di­rec­tor-star Gian­ni Di Gre­go­rio – think Nan­ni Moret­ti, with few­er neu­roses – enjoyed a pan-Euro­pean mat­inée hit with Mid-August Lunch, a gen­tle-to-neg­li­gi­ble com­e­dy about a fiftysome­thing bach­e­lor (played by Di Gre­go­rio him­self) oblig­ed to attend not just his own aged moth­er but the moth­ers of sev­er­al contemporaries.

As its title hint­ed, this was a light repast of a film, though it took at least one twinkly-eyed glance at a mount­ing cri­sis in social care. Near­ly two decades lat­er, that cri­sis shows no signs of abat­ing, and so it is we have this rejig from Ireland’s emer­gent Thorn­ton broth­ers (Col­in, who writes, along­side Dar­ren, who directs), aim­ing to con­sol­i­date their 2016 sleep­er suc­cess A Date for Mad Mary.

The story’s trav­elled from one tra­di­tion­al­ly Catholic realm to anoth­er, so the latent Madon­na wor­ship requires scant trans­la­tion. But the Thorn­tons add a tea­spoon of real­ism, the bet­ter to bol­ster Di Gregorio’s sun­ny fluff. For starters, their pro­tag­o­nist Edward (James McAr­dle) is a gay YA nov­el­ist, rep­re­sent­ing all those pen­ni­less cre­atives strand­ed on the low­er rungs of the hous­ing lad­der. (One of the film’s truths: pub­lish­ers’ advances aren’t what they used to be.) His sta­tus as a car­er for his mute 81-year-old ma (Irish screen great Fion­nu­la Flana­gan) is threat­en­ing to derail a planned US pro­mo­tion­al tour; those plans unrav­el com­plete­ly after two pals and his ther­a­pist also dump their moth­ers (Dearbh­la Mol­loy, Stel­la McCusker and Pad­dy Glynn) on him to attend Pride in Maspalomas.

The gag is that Edward’s so code­pen­dent he can’t say no, but this is also one of those con­trivances a movie asks us to swal­low so it can get every­one in the same place. Once they’re there, Four Moth­ers enters famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry, tog­gling between farce and some­thing more sen­ti­men­tal, under­cut­ting its com­e­dy with cud­dli­ness. Edward’s soon jug­gling the needs of four often-with­er­ing matri­archs, the demands of an agent try­ing to tough­en him up for Amer­i­ca, and mes­sages from those par­ty­ing while he’s doing his fil­ial duty. The con­flict gets cranked up – unlike genial Gian­ni, Edward is a resent­ful sad­sack – but only slight­ly. The Thorn­tons are too busy mod­ernising the mate­r­i­al, embrac­ing pod­casts and mind­ful­ness apps that weren’t a thing in 2008.

In places, Four Moth­ers skews broad: one joke involv­ing the word ​“pouffe” is emi­nent­ly guess­able. Yet it’s mod­u­lat­ed by the sweet­ness in these per­for­mances, and by McAr­dle in par­tic­u­lar, soft, rue­ful and armed with the most thought­ful writ­ing here. The mas prove less for­mi­da­ble than the Ital­ian mam­mas, though there are nice moments for the silent Flana­gan, act­ing with eyes and iPad alone, and for Mol­loy as the wea­ried Joan, whose karaōke go-to is Black’s ​‘Won­der­ful Life’. The Thorn­tons nev­er match that track’s wrench­ing, deep-seat­ed melan­choly; caress­ing the mid­dle of the road in a mobil­i­ty scoot­er, their film is the kind of jol­ly con­so­la­tion our indus­tries make because they can’t steel them­selves to go as hard as Michael Haneke’s Amour. A can­ny crowd-pleas­er, nev­er­the­less: enough to dis­tract any­one from the onward rush of time.