Josh O'Connor Archives

Review: ‘Challengers’ (2024), starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist

April 21, 2024

by Carla Hay

Mike Faist, Zendaya and Josh O’Connor in “Challengers” (Photo courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures)

“Challengers” (2024)

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2006 to 2019, in various parts of the U.S., the dramatic film “Challengers” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A love triangle set in the world of tennis becomes a high-stakes game of loyalty and career ambitions during a tennis challenger tournament.

Culture Audience: “Challengers” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, director Luca Guadagnino and suspenseful movies about love triangles and tennis.

Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor in in “Challengers” (Photo courtesy of Niko Tavernise/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures)

Set in the competitive tennis world, “Challengers” is a stylish and tension-filled depiction of games played on and off the court during a longtime love triangle. It’s a well-acted drama with twists, turns, and teases leading to an unpredictable ending. How the movie ends will either intrigue or disappoint viewers. “Challengers” is not a typical tennis film, but it does have some predictable clichés about a seductress who plays two men against each other for her own selfish reasons.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes, “Challengers” is Kuritzkes’ first feature film as a screenwriter, after years of experience as a playwright. The story is best suited to be on screen, not just because of the tennis matches depicted in the movie but also because the story jumps back and forth in a timeline that spans from 2006 to 2019. Some viewers won’t like how this story is told in non-chronological order. However, these flashbacks and flash forwards are necessary to unfold the layers of the story’s love triangle in a suspenseful way.

“Challengers” begins in 2019, by showing an intense tennis match for men’s singles at the New Rochelle Challenger in New Rochelle, New York. The players are Art Donaldson (played by Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (played by Josh O’Connor), two former best friends whose lives and careers have gone in very different directions. Watching apprehensively in the stands is Tashi Donaldson (played by Zendaya), Art’s wife, who is also Patrick’s ex-girlfriend. Flashbacks that begin in 2006 show exactly what led up to this match and what is at stake.

In the production notes for “Challengers,” Kuritzkes says a big inspiration for the “Challengers” screenplay was the controversial 2019 U.S. Open match between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, when Williams was accused of getting coaching from someone in the audience, among other violations. Throughout the movie, it’s made obvious that Tashi (who is Art’s tennis coach for most of the story) likes to be in control and often manipulates people to do what she wants. “Challengers” keeps viewers guessing about not only who will win this match but also who will really “win” in getting what they want in life.

As the various parts of the story emerge in a non-linear way, viewers have to put together the story like pieces of a puzzle. It’s enough to say some details in this review without giving away too much information. Tashi, Art and Patrick met in 2006, when they were all 18 years old. Over the next 13 years, their lives intertwined, clashed, and drifted apart in many ways. The New Rochelle Challenger match is a culmination and a crucial turning point for Tashi, Art and Patrick.

At the time the people in this love triangle met in 2006, Tashi was a student at Stanford University and a rising star on the U.S. college tennis circuit. Tashi (whose maiden surname is Daniel) was considered a tennis prodigy and expected to eventually become a high-ranking professional tennis player and probably a superstar in tennis. Instead of becoming a professional tennis player right out of high school, Tashi decided to go to a university to learn to do other things in her life besides tennis. However, it’s obvious that tennis is her only real passion.

Of the three people in this love triangle, only Tashi (who has no siblings) is seen with her family members. Her parents, whose names are not mentioned in the movie, are very involved in her career and seem to be loving and devoted parents in a solid marriage. Tashi’s father (played by Naheem Garcia) is her coach, while her mother (played by Nada Despotovich) seems to provide administrative support. Both of Tashi’s parents are only tangential characters to the story, which is mostly focused on the Tashi, Patrick and Art.

Patrick and Art, who attended a tennis boarding school together, were best friends and friendly rivals since they were 12 years old. Before Patrick and Art became estranged from each other, they had a relationship that they described as “brotherly.” In boarding school, Patrick and Art excelled in doubles tennis and were nicknamed Fire & Ice. It’s easy to tell who is the “fire” and who is the “ice” in the relationship.

Patrick is outgoing, impulsive and rebellious. Art is reserved, disciplined and obedient. Although Patrick has a “bad boy” personality and Art has a “good guy” personality, they both work well together and treat each other like family members. But there comes a time when their relationship becomes so broken, they eventually no longer talk to each other. This estrangement has mostly to do with Tashi.

It’s revealed much later in the movie that Patrick comes from a wealthy family, so his teenage plans to be a professional tennis player isn’t so he can become rich. Art’s family background is not mentioned at all, but it’s implied that Art’s tennis goals are much more motivated by money than Patrick’s tennis goals. Patrick and Art want to be famous tennis champions, of course, but Art proves to be more ambitious in his career than Patrick.

By the time Patrick is doing this New Rochelle Challenger, he’s so broke, he can’t even afford a motel room and is too proud to ask anyone he knows for financial help. Patrick (who is a bachelor with no children) sleeps in his car, or he resorts to picking up women whom he meets on dating apps, in order to find a place to stay for the night. One of the biggest flaws in “Challengers” is that it doesn’t show Art, Patrick or Tashi having any close friendships in their lives except with each other. The movie looks a bit unrealistic because of this ommission.

Observant viewers will notice in the scenes where Art and Patrick are teenagers, they move with the exuberant energy of young people who are very optimistic about their futures. Patrick and Art also tend to move in sync, like best friends or siblings who are very close to each other. As they get older, the body language movements of Art and Patrick change to being more world-weary and more cynical about life. It’s an example of the admirable acting by Faist and O’Connor how they can convincingly portray the physical and emotional metamorphoses of these characters over a 13-year time span, from late teens to early 30s.

Tashi is portrayed as someone is who obsessed with tennis as a sport and as a business, to the point that she has made tennis the most important thing in her life. She is calculating and power-hungry, but she’s not an evil person. Although she began playing tennis at a very young age, Tashi doesn’t appear to be someone who was brainwashed by her parents to let tennis take over her life. There are choices she makes as an adult that reflect the domineering personality that she has, with or without tennis.

When Patrick and Art are 18 years old, they see Tashi play and win the 2006 U.S. Open Junior championship. Art and Patrick are instantly smitten with Tashi and want to meet her. They get their chance at the after-party to celebrate Tashi’s victory. She can instantly sense that Art and Patrick are attracted to her and will most likely compete with each other to win her affections. She uses this rivalry to her advantage.

At first, Tashi is coy and flirtatious with Art and Patrick. A pivotal scene is during the night that they all meet each other, when Tashi surprises Art and Patrick by showing up at their hotel room, after she initially declined their invitation to meet up at the hotel after the party. What happens in that hotel room sets the tone for the rest of this love triangle.

The trailers for “Challengers” make it look like this could be a sexually explicit movie, but it’s actually not sexually explicit, although the movie is definitely geared to mature audiences. There is no nudity during any love scenes. And the “erotic” content is mostly people kissing passionately, sometimes scantily clad. There is no threesome sex between Tashi, Art and Patrick. And the nude scenes are brief non-erotic shots of male nudity in a locker room and a sauna.

What “Challengers” does to make the love triangle look interesting is keeping viewers on edge to see that Tashi will do next. It’s eventually revealed that Art fell in love with Tashi almost immediately, but Tashi chose to date Patrick instead during their late teens and early 20s. Art enrolled in Stanford University (no doubt to be closer to closer to Tashi), while Patrick skipped a college education to became a professional tennis player.

Patrick and Art are close, but there are some things that they don’t openly talk about with each other. For example, when Patrick and Tashi start dating each other, there’s a scene where Art and Patrick are playing tennis together, Art wants to know if Patrick and Tashi have had sex but Art doesn’t want to know all the details. Art tells Patrick that if Patrick and Tashi had sex, Patrick should serve the tennis ball in Art’s signature way: by putting the tennis all in the center at the top of the racket handle before serving the ball. This signature move becomes an important part of the story later in the movie.

As Patrick’s tennis career was taking off, his relationship with Tashi started to crumble. And it wasn’t because Patrick was probably cheating on Tashi with other women. Tashi doesn’t seem to care if Patrick is monogamous or not, but she does have a goal of her and Patrick possibly being a power couple in tennis. Ever the control freak, Tashi began to give Patrick unsolicited advice on how to handle his career. It leads to an argument where Patrick hisses at Tashi, “I’m your peer, not your fucking groupie or student!”

Later, Tashi has a career-ending leg injury during a college tennis match. Patrick is too busy with his career to really be there for Tashi, who goes through difficult and frustrating rehab therapy. Meanwhile, always-supportive Art gets closer to Tashi and becomes her best friend during and after her physical recovery.

Unlike Patrick, Art welcomes Tashi’s tennis advice. And when Tashi faces the reality that she can’t become a professional tennis player, Art asks Tashi to be his tennis coach, and she says yes. Art and Tashi eventually get married and have a daughter together named Lily (played by A.J. Lister), who is about 5 or 6 years old in 2019.

By 2019, Art is ranked in the top five worldwide in professional men’s tennis. Art and Tashi (who is Art’s coach/manager) are also a famous power couple in tennis. However, she is clearly unhappy in their marriage. None of this spoiler information, since it’s already revealed in the “Challengers” trailers that Art and Tashi are unhappily married and she had an injury that prevented her from becoming a pro tennis player.

What isn’t revealed in the “Challengers” trailers but what is necessary to know is why Art is playing at the lower level of this New Rochelle Challenger, which is a part of a tournament meant for second-tier professional tennis players who aren’t ranked in the top 100. It’s shown in an early scene in the movie that in 2019, Art has won almost every major tournament—the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon—but has never won the U.S. Open, which is the last tournament in the Grand Slam calendar.

In professional tennis, a Grand Slam champion is someone who wins the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in one year. Art is thinking about retiring when his tennis matches are over for the year. Tashi is determined to have Art become a Grand Slam champion before he retires. However, on the U.S. Open tour in 2019, Art has been on a losing streak.

Tashi comes up with the idea for Art to boost his confidence by playing a challenger match, where it’s expected he can easily win against less-talented, lower-ranked players. Art thinks this type of challenger match is beneath him, but he reluctantly agrees to it since he always does what Tashi wants. Tashi has the type of personality where she tells Art he can decide what he wants to do, but she makes it clear which decision that he makes will satisfy her the most.

Tashi knows that Patrick has been on the challenger circuit for years, since Patrick never reached the career heights that Art did. What Tashi probably did not anticipate is that Patrick would advance far enough in the New Rochelle Challenger to end up playing Art in this particular match that is the linchpin for this story. During this match, the past and present for this love triangle collide.

Zendaya gives a riveting performance as the emotionally guarded but scheming Tashi. It’s left up to interpretation if Tashi is really capable of true love. She is a caring and attentive mother to Lily in the short scenes where Tashi is shown interacting with her daughter. Tashi also seems to have a good relationship with her parents. But did Tashi ever love Art or Patrick?

One of the most noticeable flaws about “Challengers” is that it barely shows or tells anything about who Art is apart from his relationships with Tashi and Patrick. There are multiple scenes of what Patrick does when he’s on his own, but that’s not the case with Art. It might be the “Challengers” filmmakers’ way of depicting Art as having a co-dependent personality, but it still makes his character not as well-developed as Tashi and Patrick. The movie has many unanswered questions about Art, his family and his background.

“Challengers” is more concerned about showing that there’s some unresolved sexual tension between Art and Patrick. Tashi can sense it when all three of them meet for the first time. During this first meeting, Tashi jokes that she doesn’t want to be a “homewrecker” for whatever relationship Art and Patrick are having. Patrick and Art quickly assure Tashi that they are interested in dating women, not men.

However, when all three of them meet up in the hotel room later that night, their three-way makeout session (which doesn’t turn into three-way sexual intercourse) shows that Patrick and Art might be sexually attracted to each other but won’t say so out loud. (This makeout session is already partially revealed in the “Challengers” trailers.) Patrick’s and Art’s possible unacknowledged bisexuality or queerness adds another layer of rivalry that Patrick and Art have over Tashi. When Tashi inevitably choses one guy over the other, are Art and Patrick jealous of each other, or are they jealous of Tashi?

Issues of class and race, which have big implications in an elitist sport such as tennis, are barely acknowledged in “Challengers.” On the night that Tashi, Patrick and Art first meet, Patrick and Art tell her about their shared background of going to the same boarding school and being roommates for years. Tashi quickly mentions that even if her parents could afford to send her to a boarding school in her younger years, they wouldn’t want to because it wouldn’t be safe for her. Patrick and Art both look confused by this comment, until Tashi (whose father is black and whose mother is white) gives them a look as if to say, “Because I would have to deal with entitled and harmful racists if I went to your type of boarding school.”

Later in the movie, when Tashi and Patrick are both 31, she has a conversation with him where she says, “I’m taking such good care of my little white boys.” It’s a remark that’s meant to be an insult but it comes across as empty and flippant, considering Tashi doesn’t even talk about being biracial or African American. And because there is no information about the socioeconomic status of Art’s family (such as if Art’s family could afford his boarding school expenses, or if his family needed financial aid), it’s not really clear how being a multimillionaire as a tennis star has affected or changed Art.

“Challengers” has a techno/electronica-heavy music score by Oscar-winning composer Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. This score is a mixed bag and is most effective in ramping up the tension in many of the scenes. However, there are times when the score music becomes too loud and interrupts a scene in ways that don’t always fit the mood of the scene.

The tennis matches in “Challengers” are engrossing but filmed in inconsistent ways. Most of the matches are filmed similar to what might be seen on a sports telecast, without sports commentators. In a climactic scene at the New Rochelle Challenger, the match is filmed from the perspective of the players, so what’s seen on screen looks like what it would look like if the players were wearing cameras somewhere on their heads. The “Challengers” cinematography from Sayombhu Mukdeeprom might get mixed reactions, but it’s bold, and it takes risks that give this movie an artistic edge over most other tennis films.

Guadagnino and Zendaya are two of the producers of “Challengers,” which is Zendaya’s first movie where she is portraying someone in her 30s. Tashi’s age changes throughout the story, but she is emotionally stagnant when it comes to what she wants out of life: From the ages of 18 to 31, she is still obsessed with achieving greatness in tennis, by any means necessary. Beyond the usual questions about who will win in this New Rochelle Challenger and what will happen in this love triangle, “Challengers” invites viewers to ponder if the cost of letting your identity become consumed by one thing is worth it if you lose yourself in the process.

Amazon MGM Studios will release “Challengers” in U.S. cinemas on April 26, 2024.

Review: ‘Mothering Sunday,’ starring Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor, Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù, Glenda Jackson, Olivia Colman and Colin Firth

April 8, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Mothering Sunday”

Directed by Eva Husson

Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed parts of England from 1918 through the 1980s, the dramatic film “Mothering Sunday” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one black person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A woman’s journey as a maid and as a successful author are shown at various points in her life, which includes impactful love affairs that she had with two very different men.

Culture Audience: “Mothering Sunday” will appeal primarily to people interested in artsy British movies that have very good acting but with slow pacing that might frustrate some viewers.

Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù and Odessa Young in “Mothering Sunday” (Photo by Robert Viglasky/Sony Pictures Classics)

“Mothering Sunday” can be too pretentious for its own good, but the cast members’ thoughtful performances enrich the quality of this slow-paced film. Viewers must also be willing to tolerate the movie’s non-chronological storytelling of love, tragedy and hope. Because the movie’s story spans several decades (from 1918 to the 1980s) and has a timeline that jumps all over the place, “Mothering Sunday” requires a viewer’s full attention to keep track of which period of time is happening for the film’s protagonist in her youth.

Directed by Eva Husson, “Mothering Sunday” (which takes place in unnamed parts of England) touches on issues of upward mobility, inner turmoil, and how social class affects the decisions people make in love and marriage. Alice Birch adapted the “Mothering Sunday” screenplay from Graham Swift’s 2016 novel of the same name. “Mothering Sunday” made the rounds at several major festivals in 2021, including the Cannes Film Festival (where the movie had its world premiere), the Toronto International Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival. Cinematically, the movie is sumptuous to look at, but following the story will test the patience of people with short attention spans or those who have no interest in British period dramas.

“Mothering Sunday” depicts parts of the adult life of Jane Fairchild, who goes from being a maid to becoming an award-winning, famous author whose specialty is fiction writing. That transformation isn’t shown right away, as Jane’s life is revealed in scenes that can best be compared to a patchwork quilt. Most of the movie shows Jane in her 20s (played by Odessa Young) in the 1920s, while there are a few, very brief scenes of Jane in her 80s (played by Glenda Jackson) in the 1980s. Jackson’s scenes as Jane get only about five minutes of screen time in the movie. “Mothering Sunday” only shows Jane in these two decades.

The story is told in a non-linear way in the movie, but there are visual clues (such as Jane’s hairstyles) to show what period of time in her life is being depicted in each scene of her youth. It’s eventually revealed that Jane is an orphan who has no known relatives. She was abandoned by her single mother at an orphanage when she was a baby or a toddler. Jane’s childhood is never really shown or explained in great detail, but she’s grown up to be an introverted loner.

Somehow, when Jane was in her late teens in 1918, she ended up working as a house maid for a wealthy married couple named Godfrey Niven (played by Colin Firth) and Clarrie Niven (played by Olivia Colman), who live on an estate called Beachwood House. Much of the movie takes place in 1924, when Jane has been employed by the Nivens for six years. At this point in her life, Jane doesn’t see herself as being anything but part of society’s working class, until she has a forbidden love affair that changes her life.

This romance is the catalyst for much of what happens in the story and why Jane decides to transform herself into becoming a writer. The man whom she falls in love with is Paul Sheringham (played by Tom O’Connor), the son of wealthy spouses Mr. and Mrs. Sheringham (played by Craig Crosbie and Emily Woof), who don’t have first names in the movie. In 1924, Paul is in law school but he’s not particularly passionate about becoming an attorney. He’s chosen this profession because it’s expected of him.

Paul’s two older brothers Dick and Freddy no longer live in the family mansion. “Mothering Sunday” opens with a voiceover narration that essentially tells that the Niven family and Sheringham family have both experienced the tragic deaths of their young adult sons. World War I is one reason, but there are other reasons for these untimely deaths. Jane can be heard saying, “Once upon a time, before the boys were killed,” as a horse is shown running in an open field.

Paul can then be heard telling Jane that his family used to own a thoroughbred racing horse named Fandango. Paul says there was a family joke about the horse where “Ma and Pa owned the head and the body. Dick, Freddy and I had a leg each.” Jane then asks, “What about the fourth leg?” Paul replies, “Ah, the fourth leg. That was always the question, Jane.” Toward the end of the movie, this fourth leg is mentioned again in a way that will either make viewers roll their eyes in ridicule or possibly bring viewers to tears.

The title of “Mothering Sunday” comes from a pivotal Mothering Sunday (the British version of Mother’s Day) in 1924. Godfrey (who is kind, respectful and optimistic) generously decides to give Jane the day off from work, even though she doesn’t have a mother in her life, and Jane isn’t a mother. Jane’s closest female friend is the Niven family cook: Milly (played by Patsy Ferran), who has a bubbly personality but is a little shy when it comes to dating and romance. Milly and Jane spend part of this day off together.

It just so happens that on this day, Paul will have the mansion all to himself. And so, he calls the Niven home, knowing that Jane will answer the phone, to tell her to come over so they can have a sexual tryst. Jane pretends it’s a wrong number when Clarrie asks who called. The movie never details how long Paul and Jane have been having these secret hookups, but there’s a flashback scene that shows the day that Paul and Jane met, which was in 1918, shortly after she began working for the Niven family.

Paul and Jane tell each other that they are each other’s best friend. They’re keeping their romance a secret not just because they come from different social classes but also because Paul is expected to marry someone in his social circle: a spoiled heiress named Emma Hobday (played by Emma D’Arcy), whose parents—Giles Hobday (played by Simon Shepherd) and Sylvia Hobday (played by Caroline Harker)—are good friends of the Sheringham spouses and the Niven spouses. Paul doesn’t love Emma, but he feels obligated to marry her to please both sets of parents and to produce heirs from this marriage.

The Niven spouses have a tension-filled marriage because Clarrie is in a deep depression over the death of her son James, who was nearly engaged to Emma before James was tragically killed in combat during World War I. James and Paul were close friends, so Paul opens up a little bit to Jane about how James’ death affected him. Emma’s thoughts about James’ death are never shown in the movie, which portrays Emma as one-dimensional and someone who pouts a lot.

Clarrie’s grief sometimes comes out in angry spurts. She often acts irritable with her husband Godfrey and insults him in public. When she’s not acting cranky and annoyed with the world, Clarrie is withdrawn and quiet. Clarrie also acts resentful if she sees other people being what she thinks is being too happy for her comfort level. However, there’s a pivotal moment between Clarrie and Jane later in the movie that shows Clarrie’s hostile exterior is really just a mask for being heartbroken. This moment between Clarrie and Jane is one of the best scenes in “Mothering Sunday.”

Fans of Oscar-winning stars Colman and Firth might be disappointed to know that Colman and Firth don’t have as much screen time in “Mothering Sunday” as their top billing would suggest. Firth and Colman are each in the movie for about 15 minutes. However, they make the most of their screen time in portraying these contrasting and conflicted spouses.

Jane and Paul’s secret love affair is about more than just sex. They connect on an intellectual level. Jane loves to read and often sneaks into the Niven family library to read their books. Paul and Jane also bond on an emotional level, because they both feel like misfits in their environment, where they are expected to live a certain way because of society’s stereotypes for people of certain social classes.

Although there are full-frontal nude scenes (male and female) in “Mothering Sunday,” they are more about natural intimacy than eroticism. The sex scenes are actually very tame, but the full-frontal nudity is the adult-oriented content that will make parents of underage children decide if they think if it’s appropriate for their children to watch this movie. It’s implied throughout “Mothering Sunday” that Paul is Jane’s first true love.

Viewers can speculate that the movie has more male nudity than female nudity because “Mother Sunday” has a “female gaze” from a woman director. However, it can just as easily be interpreted that because these trysts happen in the Sheringham home, Paul simply feels more comfortable walking around fully naked in family house. In comparison, Jane is a little more guarded because she would suffer worse consequences than Paul if she and Paul got caught.

On the Mothering Sunday that changes Jane’s life, Paul has decided to have a tryst with Jane while Emma, his parents and Emma’s parents are waiting for him to arrive at a luncheon that all six of them are supposed to have together. Paul is going to the luncheon, but he knows he’s going to be late. What happens that day is revealed slowly revealed in flashbacks.

“Mothering Sunday” doesn’t handle the transition very well in showing Jane’s life after she decides to become a professional writer. The introduction to this part of her life is non-chronological and it’s rushed into the movie in an abrupt manner. It’s in this part of Jane’s life that she is involved in another meaningful love affair.

His name is Donald (played by Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù), and he is also a published author. When Donald and Jane first met (which is shown in a flashback scene), she hadn’t yet become a professional writer. She was working in a bookstore, he was a customer, and they had an instant rapport. Jane and Donald are both loyal and supportive partners to each other. In contrast to Jane’s secretive relationship with Paul, the relationship between Donald and Jane is out in the open. However, the movie never addresses the fact that Jane and Donald are in an interracial relationship in the 1920s.

This lack of acknowledgement of this couple’s racial differences implies that they are living in a part of England where interracial relationships were more accepted than in other parts of England. Still, it does come across as very phony and willfully ignorant that the movie never shows Donald and Jane experiencing or talking about any prejudice from other people because of the couple’s interracial relationship. Even in the most open-minded and progressive areas of England, a black man and a white woman in a romantic relationship would still cause problems for this type of interracial couple in the 1920s.

There are other large gaps in Jane’s life that aren’t adequately explained. Viewers never get to see if Jane went through any struggles as a writer before she had her first book published. Donald and Jane’s courtship is also a big mystery. The movie jumps from Donald and Jane being close to getting married, to a flashback scene to how they met, to Donald proposing marriage and Jane’s response.

Throughout this movie’s very messy and haphazard timeline, Young gives a consistently transfixing performance as Jane, who is an interesting contrast of being verbally articulate yet hard-to-read with her inner emotions. O’Connor also handles his role with aplomb to show that Paul is not just another spoiled rich kid, although Paul sometimes acts that way. Dìrísù doesn’t have much to do in the movie, because Donald is a very underdeveloped character.

Viewers might be bored with a lot of characters in “Mothering Sunday,” but Jane remains an interesting enigma whose life journey can inspire a lot of curiosity. Jane has been taught for most of her life to repress her emotions, so when she discovers that she is an artist who wants to express her emotions through her writing, it’s a metamorphosis that is thrilling to behold. And most audiences will be rooting for an orphan who grew up not knowing any parental love and is trying to find true love and a family of her own.

Unfortunately, because the movie frequently interrupts itself with flashbacks, viewers of “Mothering Sunday” never get a full picture of Jane blossoming as an artist. She’s certainly someone who has a lot of things that happen to her, but there should have been more in the movie that showed Jane being more of an active doer in her life, instead of someone passively reacting to whatever life threw her way. Someone like Jane doesn’t become a famous and highly respected author just by “luck.”

“Mothering Sunday” has a lot of scenes of people smoking cigarettes as they look out windows or stare off into space, looking pensive or worried. It’s not a movie that presents the story in a particularly exciting or straightforward way. But for people who like emotional nuance and characters that are like puzzles to be solved, there’s plenty to appreciate about “Mothering Sunday.” Just make sure you watch the movie when there’s very little chance that you’ll fall asleep, because a lot of how this story is presented can be snoozeworthy.

Sony Pictures Classics released “Mothering Sunday” in select U.S. cinemas on March 25, 2022. The movie’s release expanded in the U.S. on April 8, 2022. “Mothering Sunday” was released in the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe in 2021.

Review: ‘Hope Gap,’ starring Annette Bening, Bill Nighy and Josh O’Connor

March 6, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Hope Gap”

Directed by William Nicholson

Culture Representation: Taking place in London and Seaford, England, the emotionally intense drama “Hope Gap” is about a middle-class white family affected by a painful divorce; the estranged couple’s son confides in two friends who are people of color.

Culture Clash: The former couple are at odds because the husband wants the divorce but the wife doesn’t.

Culture Audience: “Hope Gap” will appeal primarily to fans of arthouse cinema who want to see a well-written, well-acted story about the harsh realities of divorce and the effects that divorce can have on an adult child.

Josh O’Connor and Bill Nighy in “Hope Gap” (Photo by Robert Viglasky)

The divorce drama “Hope Gap” begins with gorgeous, sweeping aerial shots of Seaford, a small Sussex city on the South Coast of England. As the camera takes in the picturesque views of the cliffsides and grassy knolls, the movie’s narrator, Jamie Axton (played by Josh O’Connor), reminisces of a simpler time in his childhood. One of his favorite childhood activities was exploring in a cove called Hope Gap, located underneath the cliffs, as his mother would wait nearby on the rocks.

As viewers soon learn, Jamie’s nostalgic memories of Hope Gap are what he’ll have to cling to when he thinks of happier times in his parents’ marriage. And who are his parents? Jamie’s mother Grace Axton (played by Annette Benning) is retired, and Jamie’s father Edward Axton (played by Bill Nighy) is a history teacher at a local high school. Grace and Edward still live in their family home (a cozy Tudor house) in Seaford. Jamie, who’s in his mid-to-late-20s, is their only child, and he lives alone in a small London apartment.

Grace and Edward’s home might look comfortable, but the emotional atmosphere is filled with turmoil. The couple will soon be celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary, and Grace is annoyed that Edward doesn’t really seem to care. She nitpicks over little things—Edward’s hobby of updating Wikipedia articles, how he gets a cup of tea—and the more she nags and prods, the more he seems to shut down emotionally. She’s also angry that Edward doesn’t want to give any input for any plans she might have to celebrate their anniversary.

It’s obvious that Grace wants Edward’s romantic attention, and she’s practically begging him to say all the right things to her. But Edward seems to be paralyzed with not knowing if he can say the right thing, because Grace criticizes so much of what he does. Grace’s constant berating makes him think that he can never do anything right with her. As irritated as Grace seems to be with Edward, she speaks lovingly of Jamie. She tells Edward how much she misses Jamie and how she wishes he would visit more.

It isn’t long before Jamie comes to visit from London. Grace immediately starts in on Jamie about his love life. He’s single and dating, but not in a serious relationship. Grace says she wants him to settle down and get married, and she worries about him living alone. Jamie tells her that he’s comfortable living by himself, and he doesn’t seem to be in a rush to get married and have kids.

Meanwhile, Grace (who’s a very religious Christian and very opiniated) expresses disappointment when Jamie tells her that he’s become an atheist. She tries to enlist Edward in her debate with Jamie about religion, but Edward refuses to take sides. Edward tells Grace that religion isn’t a fact; it’s a belief.

Grace gets even angrier when she and Edward have a tense conversation alone together. She badgers him to tell her what will make him happier. He doesn’t really have an answer for her. He just wants to be left alone. The argument escalates when Grace asks Edward to tell her that he loves her, but he refuses. She gets so upset that she slaps him and turns over the kitchen table in a rage.

All the signs are there that Edward has emotionally checked out of their marriage. However, it still comes as a shock to Jamie the next morning when he finds out that Edward is going to leave Grace that day. Jamie gets the news when Grace has gone to church, and he and Edward are alone together.

Edward tells Jamie that he’s going to leave Grace because he’s fallen in love with another woman, they’ve been having an affair for about a year, and he’s going to move in with her. His mistress’ name is Angela (played by Sally Rogers), and she’s the mother of one of his students. Edward plans to tell Grace this devastating news when she gets home from church, and Edward doesn’t want Grace to be alone in the next few days after Edward leaves her.

It’s then that Jamie realizes that keeping his mother’s company after the breakup is the real reason why Edward invited Jamie over to visit, and Edward basically admits it. A shocked Jamie tells Edward that he wants to leave for a few hours because he doesn’t want to be at the house when Grace gets blindsided by the news. And the breakup goes about as horribly as you’d might expect.

Grace goes through the stages of grief, with denial and anger being the ones that are the hardest for her to overcome. She doesn’t want to give Edward the divorce, even though he’s offered her the house and a generous settlement. Meanwhile, Jamie is angry at his father and mostly takes Grace’s side in the breakup, even though deep down he now knows that Edward had been miserable in the marriage for many years. Jamie decides to spend more time with his mother when he can, so that she won’t feel so alone. He can barely speak to his father, and he doesn’t want to meet Angela.

As Jamie travels and back and forth between London and Seaford, the divorce starts to take an emotional toll on him too, as he sees his mother slide into a deep depression. She’s given up her hobby of collecting poems. She’s stopped caring about her personal appearance and she spends long hours staring into space. Grace also shows signs of mental instability that go beyond depression, because she leaves love notes for Edward around the house, in the delusional hope that he will change his mind and come back to her. And she gets a male Labrador Retriever puppy and names him Edward.

Jamie is somewhat of a loner, but he has two close friends he confides in about his personal problems—a couple named Jess (played by Aiysha Hart) and Dev (played by Ryan McKen). Jess and Dev, who are happily dating each other, offer some insightful advice to Jamie, because they know his dating habits, which is a side of Jamie that his parents’ don’t see. They tell Jamie that as much as he might dislike his father Edward’s seemingly aloof demeanor, Jamie can also be emotionally distant when it comes to romantic relationships, and maybe he needs to open up more.

When Jamie realizes that he’s a lot more like his father than he really wanted to admit, it prompts him to look at his parents’ divorce from a new perspective, and he starts to come to grips with how the failure of the marriage will affect his views on life. “Hope Gap” has a level of heartbreaking authenticity that isn’t seen very much in movies about divorce. That’s probably because writer/director William Nicholson went through something similar when his parents split up after nearly 30 years of marriage.

While so many movies about divorce have the divorced couple fighting over child custody, “Hope Gap” shows the perspective of an adult child of divorce who has to “choose sides” when the battle isn’t over custody but over loyalty. As the family at the center of the story, the three stars of the movie—Bening, Nighy and O’Connor—give admirable performances that are bound to pull at people’s heartstrings and tear ducts.

And the majestic seaside setting of “Hope Gap” (which is beautifully filmed by cinematographer Anna Valdez Hanks) gives added depth to the feelings of isolation, fear and wistfulness that the Axtons experience in the story. The treacherous waves that crash against the cliffs of Hope Gap are an apt metaphor for navigating the often-cruel devastation of divorce and not necessarily knowing how to survive it.

Roadside Attractions and Screen Media released “Hope Gap” in select U.S. cinemas on March 6, 2020. The movie’s digital and VOD release date is May 8, 2020.