By Nils Bothmann. Mothers and sons are the central topic of Harry Clegg’s Mummy’s Boy. Even the travels of our protagonist Kevin start with an encounter with a young mother, afterwards he is off with his own pregnant wife Cathy (a mother-to-be) to meet his own mother Marjorie for the first time, who had given him up for adoption after his birth. Three different constellations, three versions of motherhood, and in the middle a male protagonist of all things, seemingly unable to find the right words to say to any of the female characters.

The difficulty of communication is actually one of the main themes of this 13-minute-film, but MUMMY’S BOY doesn’t reduce this problem just to men being from Mars and women being from Venus. Clegg is much more focused on the inability to talk to each other openly – a general condition that has sometimes more, sometimes less grave consequences. While Cathy can in the end understand with a smile, why Kevin cuts himself off from his past without any further words after the disappointing confrontation with Marjorie, the positions of Kevin and his mother have quickly become entrenched during the preceding conversation. Almost fragmentarily Clegg shows the conversation, managing with only little dialogue, as what is left unsaid actually weighs much more than what is openly said. A short question about why he was given up for adoption is met with a stubborn justification – but his feelings of being left alone are left just as unsaid as her potentially deeper reasons for the decision back then.

The matter-of-fact aesthetics that Clegg chooses for showing this quite emotional incident fit the protagonist’s final disillusionment: following the British “kitchen sink” realism Clegg uses grainy footage throughout his film, a naturalistic colour scheme and actors that look like the people next door. No models, no Hollywood kitsch, no simple solutions. In the end the protagonist frees himself from the ghosts of his past with a simple but effective gesture. A silent pledge to be a better parent – he wouldn’t have needed to say it out loud.

Links

• MUMMY'S BOY (GB 2009. Harry Clegg)
• Universal British – An interview with Harry Clegg
• Realism for the Art, Romance for the Market – Nils Bothmann about the British film market