We tend to think of artists as flamboyant, fiery and temperamental, but not all artists are painted with the same brush as MRS LOWRY & SON so beautifully, tenderly and unrambunctiously attests.
Laurence Lowry was a Lancashire rent collector by day and painter by night. He lived with his widowed, invalid mother, Elizabeth, who dismissed his daubing as dabbling, a mere hobby, and was quite disdainful, disparaging and dismissive of his art.
Counter intuitively, her disappointment only served to spur her son on, seemingly obsessed in creating something that would please her, make her happy. This was his conflict, his torment.
MRS LOWRY & SON is a film of tragic irony coruscatingly fleshed out my two towering performances – Timothy Spall as Laurence and Vanessa Redgrave as Elizabeth.
Spall is no stranger to depicting artists – his turn at portraying Turner was a towering achievement a few years back. This portrait is in direct contrast. A simple man, a painter, no more no less. But Spall captures the nuanced layers of this simply complex man.
Redgrave’s rendition of the bed ridden biddy could easily have been a one dimensional harridan but she renders it with a sub strata that creates sympathy above hatefulness.
The tone of MRS LOWRY & SON magnificently represents its subject. No pyrotechnics just a sharp and simple observance of the world around the artist and his unlikely muse. Deceptively simple belying the emotional depth of the piece, much like Lowry’s paintings. What could have been totally dour becomes delightful in most unexpected ways.
Written by Martyn Hesford, adapted from his original radio play and subsequent stage play and directed by Adrian Noble, MRS LOWRY & SON is a brilliant character study of sacrifice and solidarity and the ennobling pursuit of art.
L.S. Lowry became internationally famous for his depictions of 20th century industrial life in the North West of England, and the legacy of his work remains a huge presence in the region. Such was his eventual success that he was offered five honours over his lifetime, including a knighthood in 1968 – all of which he rejected – and his work was displayed in a retrospective, record-breaking exhibition at the Tate. His work sells for millions.
As Timothy Spall said so succinctly, “You don’t get Christianity without the crucifixion.”