Interview With Director Darren Thornton/Co-Writer Colin Thornton (Four Mothers)

Happily declaring it a ‘wonderfully warm hug’ in my official review. Ahead of Four Mothers’ UK release on Friday 4th April. There was no case of the Monday (31th March) blues here, as I hopped on what proved to be a rather lovely Zoom call with the film’s director Darren Thornton and co-writer Colin Thornton.

Here’s our chat in full:

Darryl: Congratulations on the film. Thoroughly enjoyed. So it’s just a pleasure to get to talk to you both this afternoon. With Four Mothers, you drew inspiration from a Gianni De Gregorio film called Mid-August Lunch. What was it in particular about that film thematically did you gravitate towards, through its character work as well to lay the foundations for this?

Darren: Ermm.. What was it? It was probably that it really resonated with us, because we were sort of living a similar scenario at the time. We were both at home caring for our own Mum who was unwell, so were spending a lot more time with our Mum. From the moment with the Italian film when we played it. There was a sort of scene of Gianni reading, I think the Count Of Monte Cristo to his Mum as a bedtime story. It was just a beautiful, beautiful scene. Immediately just the visual of it and the sentiment behind it really kind of chimed at what we were experiencing in that moment, with spending time with our own Mum and just getting to know her again. Not that we didn’t, we were always around her but in a much more intimate way. So you know, unfortunately she passed away a year later and we just needed to write about her. We kind of felt like we couldn’t do really anything else at that point. We were getting stuck with everything else that we were writing and obviously grief played a major part in that. So we needed to find a way into writing about our experiences with her and celebrate her. This the idea of in some way adapting or reimagining Mid-August Lunch reflected some of our own experience was the perfect way to do that.

Darryl: I think that’s what i really gravitated towards as well. Similar to you guys. I ended up being a carer for my Mom who we lost quite young and my Nan as well through an 18 month period. Given what you mentioned with grief playing a part. Going through the full process of bringing the film to the screen now. Was there a healthy re-evaluation of that journey that you went on? A deep feeling of catharsis? What were the overriding feelings that you both had at the time?

Colin: That’s a really good question Darryl. We probably both have something to say on it. For me, I’m not sure if that came through the writing process, it might have. But actually i feel like that feeling of catharsis, also that sort of sadness. Even still feeling how profound the loss has been around this time. Yesterday was Mother’s Day and I found it particularly hard. Seeing so many people that i know getting to go to the cinema. This morning I’ve been getting a lot of photos from not just my gay pals, but actually people i don’t know who took their mum to the cinema yesterday. Loads of really funny, kind of adorable photos of middle-aged gay men with their mums and that’s so lovely. But also i suppose there’s kind of a sadness that comes with seeing them as well, because our mum was quite young when she died. So we were robbed of having an experience like that with her. What about you Darren?

Darren: Yeah. Yesterday i had a similar feeling to you. I probably did feel some sense of catharsis maybe, you know in writing the script. Recreating a lot of these moments that we would have had, that were very very painful. But then being able to reframe them a little bit and look at them in terms of a more joyful way, sometimes in terms of comedy. I definitely felt something shift in me as we worked through that script, definitely at a certain point. And even when we were recreating and filming, because there was so much of the detail from her life and the environment. The detail of like the little trinkets and the production design, that was so similar and so close to what we had. It reinforced the full circle-ness of it. Being able to go OK this was painful and kind of letting that pain go. So yeah definitely felt like… You know you still have the moments that you have. But there was something pretty powerful in that, being able to recreate. Then it’s really gratifying to see it in a cinema now with an audience. Have them respond to it and meet people afterwards. Hear about their stories caring for a parent and how the film resonated with them.

Darryl: Thanks for opening up about that. Didn’t want to be too intrusive.

Colin: Not at all, no.

Darryl: Queer cinema for all its progress, generally is more skewered towards younger characters the majority of the time. So it was quite refreshing to have a middle-aged perspective with all their emotional baggage and wit, play a part in the film. Was that an immediate appeal for you guys or did it develop over time?

Darren: It was pretty much from the get-go. You often come at it from wherever you are, particularly with something like this. Because what made the original film so lovely, is that it was quite literally the writer himself in his own film with his actual mother. And while we couldn’t recreate that and we didn’t want to because it was so effectively done there. We did want to be able to bring as much of our personal experience, what we were feeling into it as much as possible. The idea of him being middle-aged was good for us. It enabled us to bring a lot of the more absurd experiences that we had. Because when we were.. During the time that we were carers our first film had just come out. We were also promoting our first film and that led to a whole series of weird encounters. Like you’re doing a radio interview and bringing your mum to the bathroom. Trying to sort all this out at the same time. It gave us an avenue to bring all of those weird, kind of quirky stories that we had. So I think the idea of him being middle-aged was there from the get-go and part of the appeal yeah.

Darryl: With that said. Of course, James McArdle playing Edward. What was it about him specifically that was an ideal fit to embody all these anxieties and insecurities of the character?

Colin: Well it’s funny. Because as you were asking the last question. The first thing i thought of was that James is literally 10 years younger than me.

Darryl: Oh really!? *laughs*

Colin: He’s not a middle-aged man at all. So we had to do a little work to get him looking how he does in the movie. I think anytime myself and Darren talk about the film and we always kind of say.. ‘Well it’s about a middle-aged man’ and i can feel him kind of giving us daggers going ‘Is it!? Is it!?’ We are both huge fans of James. He is a generational actor and i had seen him in Angels In America. Like i was blown away by him and for anyone who knows the calibre of that cast. It really says something when you walk away from it and say he was the best thing in it. Then Darren had seen him in a Michael Winterbottom film. What was the name of the Michael Winterbottom film?

Darren: On The Road. It’s the musical tour movie for Wolf Alice. It has this fictional strand running through it, with James as a roadie. He speaks in his own voice, Scottish accent. It’s very documentary-like and subtle. He’s quite beautiful in it.

Colin: And so that’s kind of how we got the idea. I mean in those early stages, you’re thinking about so many different possibilities. And then when Darren had seen the Michael Winterbottom film. He mentioned James to me and then i remembered seeing Angels In America. It was like a lightbulb moment. Darren then had a phone call with James. Spoke for 20 minutes and afterwards he gave me a call and went ‘We’ve found our Edward’. Soon as we met James, it was a no-brainer. We were really excited to have him.

Darryl: Switching the attention to the female members of the cast. There’s a wonderful camaraderie between the four that feels instantly recognisable and authentic. What was it like building that chemistry between them? Particularly for Fionnula Flanagan, given the distinct lack of dialogue? Were there any reservations there heading in?

Darren: Yeah, i mean not on our part. I think for Fionnula. We kind of knew as soon as we met each of the ladies, that they were exactly what we were looking for. Luckily, proved to be right. When we put them altogether, the chemistry and the friction was instantaneous in the best possible way. It was really wonderful. From the point of view of Fionnula, being reliant on the I Pad to communicate. That was a hard sell. She really wanted to do the film and when she met us she was like literally ‘I love the script, I’ll play any of the four ladies’. We were like we really want you to do Alma, because there’s very few actors that have the sort of power in terms of holding a close-up in a silent role to carry that. So she agreed to it but was kind of always slightly hesitant about not being able to use her voice. Always wanted to you know, sort of make the case ‘could she speak sometimes.. could she sign?’ and we were like no no we can’t do any of that. It has to be this device and stuff. But i think it was her frustration with that, that lent itself to the film and to the power of that device.

Darryl: Another wonderful thing about the film is how you bridge the age-gap between these characters, through all these healthy conversations. I think particularly given what’s going on politically. In terms of care, it’s often undermined. Were you keen to put that more progressive argument forward, making sure these characters have dignity in their twilight years?

Colin: I would say absolutely we were. But if I’m honest I don’t think we had conversations around that, in those early stages writing it.

Darren: It’s just sort of a given with us. If we’re gonna write. We look at anybody with complete empathy, understanding and a sense of there’s so much life going on with everyone that you encounter on a day-to-day basis. No matter what walk of life they come from. So the idea of minimising or treating anybody in a sort of one-dimensional way drives both of us crazy. You know we hate in life when people are dismissed and we hate in storytelling, when characters are diminished or not fully rounded. Fully explored. It’s never like ‘oh let’s write a film about an elderly person recovering from a stroke because they’re underrepresented or’. It’s never anything like that. It’s just someone we might encounter or a period that we might live through and want to kind of share that experience with others. You always come at it from the point of view that if we find these characters interesting. There’s gonna be other people that will as well.

Colin: I think just to add or maybe I’m reiterating what Darren said. The thing that really excited us about telling a story from the perspective of these older characters, was the idea that we would be able to present them in a multi-dimensional way. That we would be able to show the complexity of the characters and the contradictions. Then within that, all of the stuff in getting the representation right at a later stage becomes really important to us.

Darryl: To wrap up on a lighter note. Given the Maspalomas Pride aspect which is quite trim within the film. Is there a sort of favourite memory from filming those sequences? Are we going to be demanding a ‘Maspalomas Pride’ cut further down the line with all the deleted scenes?

Darren: We’re putting together the Blu-Ray at the moment. We shot so much stuff at Maspalomas Pride because we were just filming on I Phones. So we have a whole parallel story between Colm (Gearoid Farrelly) and Billy (Gordon Hickey), the two characters who go to Maspalomas Pride. We filmed and documented their holiday while there and pretty much was able to go into the film. So we might be able to include that in the Blu-Ray. We’re kind of hoping that we can.

Colin: We had such a nice time. It was so much fun. The Maspalomas shoot happened after the main shoot and at that point, we were overbudget. There was no money left. So it essentially involved myself, Darren and the two actors getting on a Ryanair flight and going to Maspalomas Pride for a weekend. It’s probably one of my fondest memories making the film. Like the four of us just had such a laugh and lovely time. You know that’s the kind of detail that you can’t really recreate that. To just go to Pride, have a camera and put them into all kinds of situations. And like Darren said, so much of it we shot for all kinds of reasons we couldn’t get into the film. A lot of it had to do with the release forms and stuff like that. Because it was just the four of us and if you’ve been to Maspalomas Pride and experienced what all those parties are like. There’s so many people. So when you’re running around shooting and going ‘sorry can you fill in this release form!?’ You know, not the easiest thing.

Darryl: I think that’s a really cool note to end on. Thank you so much for this afternoon, especially being such a big fan of the film.

Colin: Thanks Darryl and thanks so much for your review from Glasgow Film Festival. Darren wasn’t there but I was. I was telling Darren it is one of the most special experiences that I had at those two screenings in Glasgow. The response was so lovely.