For Mom & Me, Irish documentarian Ken Wardrop travelled to Oklahoma, the “manliest state in the US”, to explore the relationships a wide variety of men share with their mothers. Told via a series of intimate interviews, this deceptively simple film has a growing power that creeps up on you over the course of its brief run time.
The set-up begins with local radio host Joe Cristiano and a segment he did for Mother’s Day, asking men to call in and discuss their mothers. This is the launching pad for Wardrop, who sits down with the men who called in and, in most cases, their mothers too. He meets families from all walks of life, primarily in their homes, and the interviews feel casual and natural but are also very revealing, uncovering intimate details about these people’s lives.
The broad cross-section of people Wardrop meets is impressive, from a veteran clearly suffering some form of PTSD, to a man in his thirties who has only just found a real relationship with his mother or a recovering drug addict in a state prison who struggles with the guilt of letting his mother down. Two stories stand out more than the others though and they pack the film’s real emotional punch, as two men mentally prepare to lose their mothers in very different ways: one who is slowly succumbing to dementia and the other, in her eighties, who is increasingly frail.
Though the film initially feels a little slight – its chirpy tone giving the impression it’ll be more fun than insightful – it packs a surprising punch as the accumulative effect of all of these wonderfully candid portraits eventually hits home. Cristiano’s interludes linking the segments together could have felt like an unnecessary gimmick but he is a good speaker and the conceit works as a way of tying together all of these fascinating stories. As an interviewer, Wardrop largely stays unseen and unheard on screen, keeping out of the picture to allow his charming, compelling subjects tell their story.
The end result is a poignant and moving look at masculinity and the powerful bond between mother and son.
EIFF 2016 — count: 23
Festivals — count: 132
