Mrs Lowry & Son

It doesn't always work, but I figure and movie with Timothy Spall in it is worth a look. Mrs. Lowry and Son is one of those slowly paced movies that you have to let roll over you and be patient. The two characters are not always likable and may let you down in small ways, as they let each other down, but I was till rooting for them. L.S. Lowry as presented here and presumably in his life was a very complex character. I liked how he was playful with neighborhood children and poetic when describing as a painter the scenes and places he has seen. But the other side of him is the rent collector…

This plods along in an almost Alan Bennett-esque fashion. It doesn't ever catch fire, but is well written and does seem to accurately reflect the routine and repetitive way of life for both Lowry and his largely bedridden mother. The principals gel well, and we do get a sense of what their relationship might have actually been like in a relatively poverty-stricken industrial Lancashire in the 1930s when Lowry acted as a rent collector. Once you get an understanding of the mundanity of this existence it helps make a little sense of both why it took so long for his art to become recognised…