Four Mothers
Four Mothers was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2025! It was the opening night film of the festival, on Thursday, May 15, and it was the Seattle Premiere of this film!
How many mothers is the right number of mothers to have? An average number has to be somewhere around 1 I imagine, but people sometimes have fewer, sometime they have more. But rarely do they have four. And thankfully, our lead doesn’t actually have four here either.
Edvard (James McArdle) is a romance novelist for the YA crowd. He is a gay man, and his books feature gay romance, but he thinks his writing is a bit better and more important than simple romance. Right now his book is set to come out in America, and it is getting strong buzz before it comes out. So he wants to really capitulate on the buzz and maybe earn him the success he always felt he deserved.
Unfortunately for Edvard, he also lives with his mother, Alma (Fionnula Flanagan), who doesn’t speak anymore and uses a tablet to speak instead. She is old, she is closed to death, and he is her caretaker. It does mean he has no social life and he is thinking about of leaving her in a home, just to give him some time to find that life success. But he is also a coward and doesn’t think he can do it.
Regardless, he is about to set up a US tour for his book when his two best friends, also gay and also caretaking their moms, decide to ditch their mothers on his door step so they can go to a big pride festival for a few days. And his therapist, older, in the same scenario, drops his mom off too. Oh look. Four moms! So now he has to juggle four older women, with different schedules and temperaments, while he is trying to do something great in his life at the same time. Hooray!
The other mothers are played by Dearbhla Molloy, Stella McCusker, and Paddy Glynn.
They are probably not watching porn here.
Anyways, I will say I liked this concept for a story. A struggling author of a niche topic, looking to get big, dealing with underrepresented groups could lead to a lot of things. And this is a caretaker story at the same time, and caretakers, despite being a pretty large group, are often underrepresented in media as well. Or, if they are represented it is usually more of a tragedy drama, than a comedy or uplifting drama. This falls into the latter category. And, because of that, I don’t think it is able to reach the lofty goals it aspires to be.
The stronger emotional moments I feel go away too quickly. For example, the father who is clearly not in the picture, and his story, is brought up and leads to conflict, but only in smaller amounts despite holding a lot of weight. The idea of a temporary home while he invoked on a 2-3 week US tour made a lot of sense, and the drama behind it felt…extra. It was a shame. The film didn’t seen to hint enough to find out why certain decisions were derisive, and I just felt bad for the main character most of the film.
The ending itself is exactly where someone would probably assume this movie landed. You know, knowing it is a comedy/drama instead of a tragedy/drama. So I wasn’t surprised when we arrived at the ending. But unfortunately the journey wasn’t fully worth it either.
All of that to say, I liked most of the main characters, including our main guy. I think the side stories of his life had a lot of heart behind them, and the acting from everyone was still top notch. But pleasant films aren’t always going to be the most exciting films.
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