'Mothering Sunday' Is a Gorgeous, Thoughtful Film

Directed by Eva Husson and adapted from Graham Swift’s 2016 novella by writer Alice Birch (Lady Macbeth), Mothering Sunday, with its first-rate cast and stunning cinematography, covers what at first seems some very familiar ground. There are the Downton Abbey-esque upper-class families dealing with their grief from the losses of World War I, and not yet ready for the changes in class and privilege that are to come. There’s an upstairs-downstairs romance. But the film takes us beyond the book’s one day of life-changing events and shows us the literary awakening of its heroine, Jane Fairchild played by Odessa Young, (The Staircase).

“Once upon a time, before the boys were killed....”

The above quote is the first line of the movie, spoken by Jane Fairchild. It’s a movie about secrets and storytelling, how experiences are changed when they are remembered and shared. Interspersed with the country scenes, all green and gold in early spring, we see glimpses of Jane’s future as a writer. Much later, and after her life has changed, a lover asks her when she became a writer. Three times, she replies — she was born, she was given a typewriter, and the third time — she’s not telling him.

Jane is an orphan, working as a servant for the Nevin family, Godfrey, played by Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), and Clarrie, played by Olivia Colman (The Favourite). It’s about the only prospect open to a young woman of her class and background. The Nivens’ hushed house is filmed initially as a series of still lives, and we realize that its owners are barely present: Mrs. Niven is frozen in grief, and Mr. Niven is a broken and blank man who communicates mainly with polite banalities.