The setting's Provence, but the humour is brittle, British and with a tang of poison
Edward St Aubyn has co-written this movie adaptation of his Booker-shortlisted autobiographical novel Mother's Milk, directed by Gerry Fox. The result looks a bit like television, though it isn't bad: sparky, boisterous, cynical, a little self-conscious but more grownup and literate than most new British movies. Jack Davenport makes the most of a juicy lead role as Patrick Melrose, a cynical, upper-middle-class Englishman deeply angry with his ageing mother, played by the now late Margaret Tyzack, in her final role. She has, in her dotage, agreed to gift the family's beautiful Provençal house to a dodgy guy called Seamus Dorke (Adrian Dunbar) as the HQ for his new age therapies. Patrick is taking his family for one final holiday in this idyllic place, for a last painful interview with his mother, who is in a nursing home nearby,...
Edward St Aubyn has co-written this movie adaptation of his Booker-shortlisted autobiographical novel Mother's Milk, directed by Gerry Fox. The result looks a bit like television, though it isn't bad: sparky, boisterous, cynical, a little self-conscious but more grownup and literate than most new British movies. Jack Davenport makes the most of a juicy lead role as Patrick Melrose, a cynical, upper-middle-class Englishman deeply angry with his ageing mother, played by the now late Margaret Tyzack, in her final role. She has, in her dotage, agreed to gift the family's beautiful Provençal house to a dodgy guy called Seamus Dorke (Adrian Dunbar) as the HQ for his new age therapies. Patrick is taking his family for one final holiday in this idyllic place, for a last painful interview with his mother, who is in a nursing home nearby,...
- 11/9/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
★★☆☆☆ With lines as awkward as "Your milk was so laced with gin I could barely drink it", the tone is quickly set for Mother's Milk (2012), Gerry Fox's adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn's novel, a dynastic drama spiked with an overabundance of Freudian froth. The Melroses, once a distinguished, wealthy family, are hitting hard times. With the money drying up, Patrick (Jack Davenport) finds himself trapped in a turbulent marriage with wife Mary (Annabel Mullion), who is ever anxious that she will repeat the sins of her own mother, Kettle (Diana Quick).
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- 11/8/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
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