And just like the Manchester Film Festival and the Renegade Master before that, I’m back and with another Manchester Film Festival blog post!

As detailed in my first post of the series, Manchester Film Festival 2024 – The Convert, the 10th edition of the festival arrived last Friday 15 March, and is sticking around at the Odeon, Great Northern, until Sunday 24 March.

Featuring an incredible line-up of films from across the globe, on Saturday 16 March, it was time to retake my seat (but a slightly better one that was on an aisle), clutch my Maltesers (until they melt slightly as is my cinema-going guilty pleasure), and take in my next choice on the list…

Mother, Couch

Three estranged children are brought together when their mother refuses to move from a couch in a furniture store.

• Year:2023
• Runtime:96 minutes
• Language:English

• Director:Niclas Larsson
• Screenwriter:Niclas Larsson
• Producer:Sara Murphy, Ella Bishop, Alex Black, Pau Suris
• Executive Producer:Ewan McGregor, Ryan Zacarias, David Harari, Natalie Sellers, Jon Rosenberg
• Cast:Taylor Russell, Ewan McGregor, Ellen Burstyn
• Cinematographer:Chayse Irvin
• Editor:Carla Luffe

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Ok, so far, so very french cinema-sounding to me, although not.

Written and directed by Nicolas Larsson, it’s based on the 2020 Swedish novel, Mamma i soffe (although Larsson states the two are very different whilst still ‘very Swedish’).

The sheer melodrama conjured up in my mind, from the very simple, yet very surreal premise, was what drew me screaming straight towards this showing in the schedule. I’m not even remotely joking.

I didn’t want to know any more than this summary. Well I also knew there was quite the stellar cast line-up (to be fair, often a turn-off than not, as there’s often a danger of ‘crowd-pleaser’ affair ahead – not so here).

And so, playing the offspring of ‘Mother’ (the one on the couch) – Ewan McGregor, Rhys Ifans, Lara Flynn Boyle.

And step up Ms Ellen Burstyn, as said Mother.

Perversely, the mundane, and surrealism, are natural bedfellows. The best kind, in fact.

You need a humdrum situation, location, foundation in order for the ‘something’s off’ to start with a planted seed and start to grow.

We had a large secondhand furniture warehouse/store (it’s set in America), run beguilingly by owner’s daughter, Bella (Taylor Russell).

Now when son, David, screams up to the vast and empty car park outside yet parks oddly far away from the entrance, my antennae are twitching.

He appears stressed though, I tell myself. It’s probably no time for logic (hold that thought – pretty much throughout…).

And, indeed we all come to the film armed with the knowledge that David does indeed have a situation. He has a mother on a couch, refusing to leave said couch.

And he has a brother. A Welsh brother, Gruffudd (Ifans) to his Scottish, who seems less perturbed by the situation, but nevertheless, somewhat invested, but mostly in Bella.

And then we have the sister. The American sister, Linda (Flynn-Boyle), who chain smokes her way into proceedings, as they all make their way upto the couch and, indeed, the mother in question – a pitch perfect eccentric matriarch (in a golden wig, the like of which has not been seen since Whatever Happened to Baby Jane), who is not for moving.

I’m not telling you much here because it’s not a narrative that can be tied up neatly in a bow with a prologue, intro, middle, end and epilogue.

It’s smart and funny, it’s dark and violent, it’s revealing and tragic, sometimes plain head-scratching.

But as the tale unravels, truths are told, battle lines drawn and explanations given (at least for why there is a clear division between the three siblings (and not just in accent and dialect), it’s a film that will leave you not quite sure what you just witnessed.

But kind of glad you did.

Oops almost forgot, F. Murray Abraham pops up with a twin and a chainsaw.

And that, my reader, is what they call a mic-drop.

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Visit https://manchesterfilmfestival.com/ for tickets, passes and the schedule for the next week.