My Mom Took Me to SIFF 2025’s Opening Gala for “Four Mothers”—and She Had Notes
The Seattle International Film Festival Opening Night Gala
May 15, 2025 at the Paramount Theatre
I walked into the SIFF 51st Opening Night Gala screening of Four Mothers knowing exactly nothing about it. No trailers, no logline, no coverage from when the film won Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival. Just the title and a faint notion that maybe it involved mothers. The tickets had been a gift to my mom from my sister, who couldn’t make it—so I got the invite.
Before heading downtown, I had dinner with mom at her retirement community. As we were walking through the lobby to head out, we passed a small group of residents beginning to gather for their Thursday night screening (David Lean’s Brief Encounter) and I caught a conversation ripped straight from our own cinematic philosophy. One resident leaned in toward the club’s curator and said, with polite defiance: “I wanted to talk to you about something. I don’t read reviews of plays or movies until after I see them. Sometimes, in your introduction, you give too much away.”
That moment hit like a mission statement—a reminder of what we call “Optimum Immersion” over at NadaMucho.com: the discipline of going in clean, spoiler-free, trusting the movie to reveal itself on its own terms. Overhearing that tiny protest, politely delivered from behind a walker, ended up being the perfect preamble.
When we got to the Paramount for SIFF’s big kickoff, we grabbed four seats and were soon joined by my friend and fellow NadaMucho.com writer Tim Basaraba and his wife Pauline. It was nice to catch up briefly before the lights dimmed, each of us waiting to be surprised.
Before the film began, though, came the ritual of gala speeches. They ran a bit long—standard fare—but were not without impact. The Mayor’s Office presented an award for Achievement in Film to Tasveer South Asian Film Festival co-founder Rita Meher, honoring her work creating opportunities for emerging and independent filmmakers in Seattle. I was especially excited to learn that Tasveer has acquired the historic Ark Lodge Cinema in Columbia City—a beautiful, character-rich theater I’ve long loved—and that it will be preserved as a vibrant community space rather than shuttered or lost to redevelopment. They’ll be transforming it into the Tasveer Film Arts Center, a permanent home for international and independent cinema.
Four Mothers is a bittersweet, razor-sharp Irish comedy that grabs you from the jump with its rich, lived-in characters and immaculate dialogue. Directed by Darren Thornton, this loose adaptation of Mid-August Lunch centers on Edward, a gay novelist caught in the slow suffocation of caregiving for his stroke-recovering mother while his own life idles in neutral. When three friends leave their own mothers in his care for a Pride getaway, the house fills with chaos, hilarity, and moments of aching humanity. You root for Edward’s escape, or at least his peace, from the first 15 minutes, and the film never lets that go. James McArdle is all coiled energy and quiet devastation, while Fionnula Flanagan delivers silent dynamite—communicating only via an iPad, her deadpan timing and digital zingers landed with such precision they had the capacity crowd laughing and cheering, the kind of collective joy that lifts your spirits and reminds you why we gather for films in the first place. Colin Thornton, who penned the screenplay alongside his brother and director Darren, has crafted a story that’s funny and moving in equal measure—never melodramatic, always grounded—and delivers a final act that’s as joyful as it is earned.
Watching it with my mother added an emotional undertow I didn’t expect. She liked the film in the end, but she had a couple of reservations. She found the setup excruciatingly implausible—the idea that three adult men would just drop their mothers at their friend’s house and jet off to a festival? “If that happened in real life,” she said, “the only two correct things to do are: one, call social services. Or two, call the police.”
Beyond letting the film settle in enough to suspend disbelief about the set-up and just enjoy the depth and humor in the dialogue, she also struggled with the central dynamic—because she so deeply believes that aging parents must not let their needs impede their children’s lives. “It took me a while to warm up to it,” she admitted. Hearing that made the film resonate in an even more personal way.
4 stars.
