The Mother

May, a grandmother living a quiet life in the London suburbs, is widowed while visiting her grown children in the city. Rather than return home, she stays on with them and finds herself adrift in a busy, unfamiliar London, fearing she has become invisible and that her life is effectively over. Then she begins an affair with Darren, a man roughly half her age who is renovating her son's house and is also involved with her daughter. The relationship is kept secret, and May is left uncertain whether it is a way of escaping loneliness or the start of something new that could bring scandal.

Roger Michell directed the film from a screenplay by Hanif Kureishi, with Kevin Loader producing. It followed Michell's Persuasion, Notting Hill and Changing Lanes, and sits fourth among the ten features listed for him. Anne Reid plays May, Daniel Craig plays Darren, and Peter Vaughan, Steven Mackintosh, Cathryn Bradshaw and Anna Wilson-Jones appear in supporting roles. The film runs 112 minutes and was made for about 3 million dollars, taking roughly 1 million dollars worldwide.

Audience response was moderate: on IMDb it holds 6.7/10 from about 4,900 votes, and on TMDB 6/10 from 72 votes. A film critics' rating of 7.2/10 from 90 reviews places professional assessments noticeably higher than the audience scores.