Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave in a two-hander, a casting made in acting heaven. The film has had very mixed reviews with the Guardian only giving it 2 stars.
I was concerned it might be too slow but the interdependency between Lowry and his mother was so stark and crippling for him that I soon became engrossed in the relationship. Timothy Spall as Lowry used his natural hangdog look to perfection. Lowry was a great disappointment to his mother and she decried his art work at every turn. She had aspirations of a different life; her husband had died leaving her with debts and she had to move to a “lower class” area which made her resentful so she used to bring her son down with her. Lowry equally was dependant on his mother because she had mollycoddled him from birth and isolated him from other children. The film left me wondering how Lowry could have developed if he hadn’t been pulled down by his mother.
I felt extremely saddened by the way a mother could treat a son and the concept of unconditional love didn’t exist in her thinking. I was moved to tears by the film partly by the manipulative cruelty of his mother and the superb acting by Redgrave and Spall. If you have an interest in painters and like L. S. Lowry’s work then I recommend the film.
