Rated: PG
Directed by: Adrian Noble
Written by: Martyn Hesford (based on his play)
Produced by: Debbie Gray
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy Spall
L S Lowry was a British artist (b. 1887, d. 1976) renowned for painting urban landscapes featuring textile mills, factory chimneys and other scenes from Pendlebury in Lancashire, where he lived and worked for more than 40 years.
The song, Pictures of Matchstick Men, by Status Quo (1968), refers to Lowry’s slightly abstract, impressionistic style of painting. Other than that reference, I wasn’t at all familiar with the artist or his work, so had no idea what ground the movie might cover.
From this perspective, the film engaged me and kept me wondering how it would end, although it was in no hurry to get there.
Rather than being an exploration of their entire lives, the film deals mainly with the years 1934 until 1939, when son Laurence Stephen Lowry (Timothy Spall) is his mother’s sole carer, while also holding down a full-time job as a rent collector, like his father before him, and painting in the attic studio most nights after she has retired to sleep.
The father died earlier and left them in debt, so their existence is restricted, although they can afford an unseen maid to do light cleaning.
Lowry is on the cusp of becoming known as an artist, so perhaps the choice of such a compressed timeframe helps show what he had to overcome in order to become recognised.
I wondered before I saw the film why it was called Mrs Lowry & Son, since the son was the one who became a famous artist. But after several minutes in her company it is clear that, despite being bedridden, the mother (Vanessa Redgrave) is the dominant person in the relationship, while his devotion to her is harder to fathom.
Perhaps by dealing with this small period in time the film depicted the essentials: his mother as the only person he really wanted to connect with, the frustration that she could not see what he could, but that he determined to balance his duty to her and his passion for painting as they were equally important.
According to biographical accounts, Lowry’s mother was controlling, couldn’t abide failure, and disliked living in an industrial, working class suburb, when she had been raised in elegance and luxury.
She considered her son’s choice of painting subjects to be ugly and a constant reminder of how far down they had fallen in society. It’s only when we see these two people in flashbacks, with her an elegant, straight-backed young woman skilfully playing the piano, or him as a young child in a sailor suit entranced to be in her company at the beach, that you can appreciate the dynamics that were established so long ago and are too entrenched now to be changed.
This filmed version of a play is very much stage-bound, and quite often stilted in the way it is photographed and acted. The only moments of lightness come from Lowry’s walks when he plays innocent games with the local children who delight in his company.
Both actors deliver their lines carefully and a bit woodenly, as though at a formal dinner party.
Not a lot happens for much of the time, just little scenes of him walking around town observing people and buildings, where he gets his inspiration, or at home upstairs in her bedroom, with her holding court from her bed while he balances his dinner on his lap, giving her updates on what is happening outside, or discussing their neighbours. But her constantly critical edicts on his lack of success, his wasted time painting, and her utter lack of appreciation for all his sacrifices to ensure she has a comfortable if slightly shabby home, food, company and safety, make her a very unlikable person.
One reviewer said she was right up there with monster mothers such as Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest or Piper Laurie in Carrie, and she is easily as awful as them, if not worse.
He tries to cheer her up and she says, ‘I haven’t been cheerful since 1898’.
It’s almost as though she enjoys being bitter and grumpy, and by constantly belittling her son ensures he’ll never have the confidence to leave her. This is especially evident when he receives an offer to show some of his work at a London gallery, and she manages to suck all the joy out of this prospect.
Apparently if she is unhappy, he must be so, too.
For a film depicting a struggling artist yearning to be recognised, not a lot of time is spent showing him painting in his attic studio or seeing more than just a few of his paintings from that period. This is frustrating if you want to see what he spends so many of his evenings immersing himself in, after he declares to his mother how his art is an obsession, how he sees beauty all around and must capture it somehow.
There are a few glimpses of his work, including the story behind the portrait of an unusual woman he saw on a bus, or a landscape featuring sailing boats, which turns out to be a treasured memory of a time he and his mother spent together at a beach during his childhood.
This is a very slowly paced film, in no hurry to get anywhere, and not given to deeper explorations of its characters’ motivations.
It will probably appeal more to an older audience accustomed to a slow burn rather than a bright rush. But I was engaged throughout, and inspired enough afterwards to research Lowry’s works, which I found fascinating in their deceptive simplicity.
Lowry once said that he was “a man who paints, nothing more, nothing less”, and this film doesn’t challenge that claim.