Mothering Sunday
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: November 19, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
12
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleMar 24, 2022
It’s an unhurried reverie that’s sometimes as wonderfully sustained as a fermata but also occasionally stifling due to filmmaker Eva Husson’s dedication to that tonal approach above all else. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 24, 2022
The picture is a bit arty and decorous; it could do with fewer swimmy camera moves. But Young vests it with a fascinating, flinty grace. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerNov 12, 2021
Mothering Sunday just falls short of a great movie; a radical attempt to shake up period-picture staidness, shot through with strong performances, impeccable craft and a strain of sadness, but it’s never enough to tug vigorously at the heartstrings. Read full review
60
Film ThreatAndy HowellSep 13, 2021
Another problem with the film is the pacing. The main story is interesting enough, but it just feels padded and stretched. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 11, 2021
It is a lovely-looking, lovely-sounding movie, handsomely designed, meticulously shot and impeccably performed — and it also has interesting things to say about the emotional toughness and the Greeneian splinter of ice in the heart, that is needed by a writer. But I have to admit that, despite my liking for slow cinema, I found something a bit indulgent and classy about the unvarying andante pace. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinJul 11, 2021
Even the lush world-building of the visuals here, committed performances especially from Young, and stream-of-consciousness editing aren’t enough to conjure the wry, melancholy, and, above all, intensely literary interior voice of the book’s protagonist. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 10, 2021
It never quite comes together — the decades-spanning connective tissue somehow feels both overstated and thin — but Husson’s skill with actors, among them Colin Firth, Olivia Colman, Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù and the great Glenda Jackson, yields undeniable dividends. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 30, 2022
Based on a spare, exquisitely crafted novel by Graham Swift, this thoughtful but ultimately inert dramatization respects its source material and tries valiantly to give arresting visual expression to its finely layered themes. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 24, 2022
Mothering Sunday never conveys the intensity of erotic passion, the ardor of creative ambition or the agony of grief. Even though it is ostensibly about all of those feelings, it handles them with a tastefulness that is hard to distinguish from complacency. Read full review
50
Slant MagazinePat BrownMar 23, 2022
For all of the film’s somberness, its depiction of an era of rigid class divisions and incalculable loss still comes through the hazy, soft-focus goggles of nostalgia. Read full review
50
TheWrapDan CallahanMar 23, 2022
The first hour or so of Mothering Sunday can be very enjoyable because Husson (“Girls of the Sun”) does not take what little narrative there is too seriously and instead dedicates herself to making O’Connor into the most attractive possible love object for her camera. Read full review
40
Little White LiesElla KempNov 22, 2021
There is pain worth immortalising in the stories of the past, and endless sadness found in a lonely woman’s quiet existence. Yet Mothering Sunday fails to look beyond what the outside world can see, in order to really excavate a truth to be remembered once the holiday has passed. Read full review
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