Mum's the word for 60-plus sex

Accustomed as we are to watching 60-year-old men bedding women a third their age on screen, rare is the movie that reverses the sexual liaison. Perhaps the chemistry between older women and younger men is more regularly explored in French cinema, but in English-speaking films (with the notable exception of Harold and Maude) it is virtually unknown. Three cheers, then, for a British movie that redresses the balance.

In his best screenplay since My Beautiful Laundrette, Hanif Kureishi limns a tale of a lightly dysfunctional family whose separate lifestyles have fractured the family unit along the generational lines.

Dowdy May (Anne Reid) and her husband, Toots (Peter Vaughan), arrive in London to stay with their brittle yuppie son, Bobby (Steven Macintosh), and his chilly, uncaring family. When Toots dies from a heart attack things really fall apart. Bobby's impoverished best friend, Darren (Daniel Craig), is building a conservatory extension to the house while having an affair with Bobby's sister, Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw).

After a spell in this intense atmosphere, May's grief at her loss turns to curiosity over the virile, masculine Darren and before long they get involved in an unexpected sexual dalliance.

Quite apart from her unclad courage in the sex scenes, 62-year-old Anne Reid conveys the dilemmas of her age and her hesitant path to liberation with extraordinary and moving subtlety.

Director Roger Michell enhances the screenplay with a distinctive European style. Sparing little in the way of sexual reality yet refreshingly free of the lasciviousness and prurience, he creates a credible atmosphere of deceit, dreams and disappointment.

His detached framing, vivid colour juxtapositions and uncluttered composition are brilliantly captured by Allwin Kuchler's cool cinematography.

One of the most poignant and affectingly controversial British movies of the year.

The Mother
Cert: 15