Mother’s Pride – Review

Cert – 12, Run-time – 1 hour 33 minutes, Director – Nick Moorcroft

A distant family (Martin Clunes, James Buckley, Jonno Davies) try to heal their divide and save their empty village pub by entering a national bear award.

“There’s nothing robust about that” says Miles Jupp’s pub critic, grimly regretting his sip of beer at the empty Drovers Arms pub. While itself not robust there isn’t an entirely regrettable state to Mother’s Pride which isn’t a tipsy mess, either. It’s a familiar light British comedy that largely appeals to the silver cinema crowd and tells you everything you need to know in the trailer. Referencing ‘from the makers of Fisherman’s Friends’ in the trailer, it’s a safe, familiar tale.

Cal (Jonno Davies) has returned to his small home village after years away chasing his musical dreams, which have led to a one-hit-wonder and poorly received second album situation. With the money dried up, and fame having taken its toll, he’s welcomed with a punch and call to leave by pub landlord father Mick (Martin Clues), and some help from brother Jake (James Buckley). The pub faces frequent trouble from the multi-award-winning rivals across the road – headed up by Luke Treadaway’s two-dimensional posh bad guy Pritchard, who almost entirely speaks in flat, single sentences.

To save the place Cal decides to make the most of his late grandfather’s microbrewery to make a beer that will challenge Pritchard’s own, put The Drovers on the map and maybe win back old flame Abi (Gabriella Wilde), who now happens to be dating Pritchard. From there you can fill in the blanks of almost all that happens over the 90-minute course of the film. It’s a predictable and seen-before affair but not one that’s as trying as others in this vein.

Where things feel most grating are in under-dealt with personal issues, largely faced by Jonno, in the wake of his fame and the mental impact it’s had on him. The one, and only, scene dealing with this feels intensely surface level, and almost as if because the writers only had a surface level view to start with and didn’t think to go deeper. The same applies to one or two gags scattered throughout, an early one involving a character being pansexual seems to have been written after a quick Google of what pansexual means and a presumption off the back of that. Leading to a joke, like a handful throughout, that falters at an attempt to be a bit cheeky with the hope of a Carry On style response.

The laughs often fall flat, I laughed once around halfway through at an amusingly awkward yet playful morning-after situation, but not painfully so. Things move along without a great deal of trouble and there’s a watchability to what plays out; with the film perhaps acknowledging that it knows what it is and what its doing, generally trying to be a British crowdpleaser, one that’ll likely one day turn up on weekend afternoon TV. For the most part I sat and watched it all happen, noticing the clichés; the overfamiliar beats. Sometimes feeling the grind of it and wishing that it would perhaps do a bit more, but maybe by the end it had the slightest of effects in its predictability, even if joined with a slight eye roll.

Mother’s Pride is another case of a British comedy that’s all in the trailer. If you’ve seen that you’ve seen the film and largely know your opinion (although, of course, the trailer isn’t the film). It’s a very familiar work, but not as weak or tiring as it could be. It certainly isn’t strong and its issues are almost clear from the very start, plus it’s likely that it’ll be quickly forgotten. However, with the stumbled laughs thankfully not grating there’s a less trying film than there perhaps could be, one that goes down that bit smoother because of that fact.

While the laughs don’t come through they’re not as grating as they could be, meaning that Mother’s Pride largely passes by with the occasional eye roll at its strong, predictable clichés and attempts at misunderstood cheeky humour.