My kids are and were perfect. I never had any problems with them. Honest. This mothers' experiences can only be down to the fact she was a shit mother and is only coming to terms with this now - on a beach on holiday twenty odd years later.
I love Colman, she is infinitely brilliant and gets better with age, if that were even possible, and for a first time stab at adapting a novel and directing it, Maggie Gyllenhaal doesn't do too badly herself.
Ably supported by Ed Harris, Dakota Johnson et al, this considered piece adapted from Elena Ferrante's novel doesn't so much as fly-by, but glides, effortlessly confident in its own quality, revelling in the unhurried, languorous approach of its telling.
A deeply personal story, you will doubtlessly take different things from it than I would. Labelling it as 'a woman's film' is doing it a dis-service however, as it is much more than just one persons regrets of a life lived at the cost of what maybe should have been instead.
The more we look back at her past through her own recollections, we begin to see the reasons for her disquiet, each individually harmless incident adding to the previous one, that would make the lonely parent, seemingly abandoned for the other by their children, no matter the age, apparently giving her repeated pause for thought.
No doubt this will garner some Oscar support, certainly for Colman, but also for Gyllenhaal, who should proudly elbow her way onto the list for director.
Just the Academy's cup of tea.