by KEVIN LAFOREST and SARAH ROWLAND

The Mother

Few people relish the idea of their mother having sex. Even fewer like to think about sharing a partner with the woman who gave them birth. The Mother, an English drama directed by Roger Michell, tackles this Freudian nightmare by concentrating on the trickledown effects of a repressed woman. Anne Reid plays May, an unfulfilled housewife who followed the '50s protocol of marrying young and squirting out a couple of kids. After her much older husband passes away, she realizes that she was "never really present" for her own life and, as a result, feels little connection to her own family. Along with her fear of growing old alone, she must now face the fact that she's raised two repugnant children. Her daughter Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw) is an insipid whiner who blames everybody for her professional and personal failures. Her son Bobby (Steven Mackintosh) is a snotty workaholic who is conveniently too busy to deal with anything on an emotional level.

The film succeeds in making May a sympathetic character, illustrating how her empty existence and consequent lack of self-worth leads to her affair with Paula's boyfriend Darren (Daniel Craig). An example of this is when a pitiful May takes Darren to the guest room, sits on the bed half-naked in front of her daughter's lover and she asks, "What do you see? A shapeless old lump?"

Another reason why this family drama works is every performance is strong and simmering with resentments and disappointments. Still, if the thought of your mom getting a handjob in your spare room makes you uneasy, The Mother may not be a the best choice for a first-date movie. (SR)

Before Sunset

It's hard getting over the fact that if these two lovebirds had just exchanged phone numbers in the first place, there wouldn't be any justification for a sequel. Richard Linklater's Before Sunset is the follow-up to 1995's Before Sunrise, where Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meet on a train, yammer on about their burgeoning personal philosophies and then spend the most amazing night of their lives together. For some reason, they decide not to exchange contact info but instead promise to meet in six months on the very same platform where they say their good-byes. But do they?

Nine years later, they bump into each other at a Paris bookstore where Jesse is promoting his novel that is loosely based on their life-altering tryst in the park. The film is almost set to real time, as the reunited couple only have about an hour-and-a-half to play what if? Just like the first installment, they waste a big chunk of that time philosophizing about world events and the meaning of life. Unfortunately, they don't have anything new to say on either subject. Pollution bad. Recycling good. Ageing sucks. Hawke holds his own as a man weighed down by his marriage of convenience. But Delpy shines, literally. The sun ceaselessly beams through her golden tresses throughout winding continuous shots.

Overall, there is a fair amount of chemistry between the two leads and the movie is worth seeing for Delpy's luminous on-screen presence. But let's hope they at least swap e-mail addresses this time to avoid a third round. (SR)

Camping Sauvage

Pierre-Louis Cinq-Mars (Guy A. Lepage) is a snobbish broker who reports a hit-and-run to the police, unaware that the culprit is the vicious leader of a biker gang. Forced to leave his yuppie life to enter the Witness Protection Program, Cinq-Mars ends up hiding in a monumentally kitschy camping community managed by the equally kitschy Jackie Pigeon (Sylvie Moreau).

Lepage can be hilarious, but he's not much of an actor. Why make him the straight man? The large supporting cast of campers and bikers get to be sillier. Unfortunately, they're stuck with a witless screenplay that can't do better than mock people's physical disabilities, speech impediment and bad grammar.

Lepage and Sylvain Roy - both first-time directors who collaborated on Camping Sauvage - are like kids in a toy store as they aimlessly play with everything and multiply unnecessary visual tricks. Their only inspired decision was to hire Ramasutra to do the score. His fusion of funk electronica and spaghetti western music is livelier than anything on screen.

Lepage has said over and over again that his big screen debut is not a "film" but "une vue," a movie. In other words, something light, unpretentious and fun. He also says that this type of flick can't be criticized because it's just harmless entertainment. Sorry, Guy, but I beg to differ. Camping Sauvage might not be pretentious and it might only aspire to be entertaining, but it doesn't even succeed at that. (KL)

The Mother, Before Sunset and Camping Sauvage
open Friday, July 9

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