Some Mother's Son

In 1981 IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland begin a hunger strike demanding to be treated as prisoners of war rather than as criminals. The film centres on the mothers of two of the strikers: a schoolteacher with no interest in politics and a woman committed to the cause. It is not interested in who is politically right. It is interested in the only power the mothers hold: once a son falls into a coma the right to authorise feeding passes legally to her, so only a mother can overturn her son's decision. The whole weight of the film gathers on that single signature. The form alternates political campaign scenes with domestic ones, and its strongest passages take place in hospital corridors. It is Terry George's first film as director. He wrote it with Jim Sheridan, with whom he had already been Oscar-nominated for the screenplay of In the Name of the Father, and Sheridan is one of the producers here. Helen Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan play the mothers, with Aidan Gillen in the cast. Who it is for: viewers interested in the history of Northern Ireland and in political drama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting neutrality. The film sets itself openly against the British government and gives very little room to the prisoners' record of violence.