Kino – “Four mothers for Edward”: Four permanent waves for a Hallelujah

I just don’t get it anymore. Everything she wants is smoking and television ‘gogging »complains Colm, who cares for his elderly mother Jean around the clock, with his friends who are sitting in the same boat. Maude, the mother of Billy, constantly creeps in with the dead awakening of strangers, while Edward’s mother Alma, deprived her of her voice, has no difficulty in ordering her son on the iPad by means of the language app-with the authority of an Irish matriarch in the digital age.

Darren Thornton and his brother and co -author Colin know what they tell about. When her first film “A Day for Mad May” came out, they decided to return to their parents’ house to look after their mother who has become a matter of care – from then on she also had to communicate via tablet. As chance, they were given the offer shortly afterwards to adapt the Italian success comedy “Das Festmahl in August” by Gianni di Gregorio. The basic idea was preserved, Rome became Dublin and this time it is three gay friends who unload their mothers with the always helpful Edward to have a few days on the Maspalomas Pride on Gran Canaria.

Touching it can be observed how the women open carefully on this trip.

Edward’s mother is embodied by the great Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan, who was most recently seen as a grandmother in “The Tribute of Panem – The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”. Impressive how she – deprived of her voice as a means of expression – gives depth solely through facial expressions, body language and haunting views of this complex role.

The other mothers are also excellently occupied with Dearbhla Molloy as a grumpy Jean, Stella McCusker as bourgeois Maude and Paddy Glynn as formerly single parent – the mother of Edwards therapist. They are all stubborn and demanding, no question. But at the same time full of dry humor and clever life.

And so the thirty -off Edward has his hands full. His coming-of-age novel on Tiktok has just gone viral and he is finally about his literary breakthrough. So his publisher also puts him under pressure to take favor of the hour and break up on reading trips to America. To do this, however, he would have to temporarily accommodate his mother in a nursing home – a step to which, as he knows all too well, she would never give her consent. As if that weren’t complicated enough, Edward also suffers from lovesickness. It is his ex-boyfriend RAF, who helps him with the idiosyncratic ladies. A painful constellation – because Edward would like to have RAF back, but he has long been in a new relationship.

Nevertheless, he repeatedly pushes the decision for the urgently upcoming reading tour, instead takes care of the various breakfast requests of his supervised and chases Jean in between when this expansion to sing in a shabby karaoke bar with crooked pathos “Wonderful Life” by Black.

When his situation is worried and his publisher almost puts the pistol on his chest, he can still be persuaded to a small trip by the rigid mothers. Her goal: a séance in a medium that should contact her late husbands – all take part, except for the single Rosey, who simply wants a road trip.

Touching it can be observed how the women open carefully on this trip – and talk about how they could only accept the sexual orientation of their sons over time. In the Catholic Ireland, where homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1993 and the marriage was only introduced for everyone in 2015 by referendum, this was by no means a matter of course. Niamh Cusack amused in this séance sequence as a cranky clairvoyant-and when Edwards suddenly breaks off his father’s oppressed, the actually humorous scene becomes an emotional catalyst during the ghost cord.

In a world in which empathy is rather small, the viewer of James Mcardle is increasingly at the heart of James McArtle. So no wonder that the tragicomedy at the London Film Festival 2024 at their world premiere with the audience award. Like the stubborn but lovable Irish Golden Girls, you can see in the course of this warm -hearted crowdpleaser that the unsafe Edward sometimes uses his mother as an excuse – so as not to take the next step.

To master the difficult balancing act to take responsibility for yourself without the one we love – is a dilemma that should not only be known Edward: just think of the approximately 7.1 million people in Germany who take care of their relatives every day – torn between the feeling of duty, affection and the often stuck to think again.

“Four mothers for Edward”, Ireland 2024. Director: Darren Thornton. With: James Mcardle, Fionnula Flanagan, Dearbhla Molloy. 89 minutes, start: July 10th