Mother - a twisted and darkly comic small town mystery

Like The Homecoming, my first film at EIFF 2016, this is a comedy drama with an unusual central story, although the humour here is much dryer and darker and the setting is Estonia.

It is confidently written and told with a brilliant central performance from Tiina Malberg that holds the film together. And amidst the deliberate absurdist tone, the film makers are careful to make the characters, their faults, and flaws, and motivations realistic rather than extreme and exaggerated.

The central story is that Elsa is caring at home for her comatose son Lauri, with no help from her insensitive husband, cleaning obsessively and making endless cups of coffee for the stream of visitors who come to see Lauri, including his hungover doctor and a small town police officer more at home looking for stolen jumpers. It soon emerges that Lauri is in the coma because of a mysterious shooting and his life savings are missing.

The film takes place almost entirely in the family home, and the director uses this location really well to emphasise and as a stand in for both the claustrophobia of a small town and Elsa’s feeling of being trapped by circumstance. Malberg is excellent in capturing all of Elsa’s complicated feelings, her frustration and concern, her passion and her greed, all with a real dry and subtle comic undertone.

The filmmakers use the repetitive structure of the home visits really well to gradually reveal more and more of the mystery of the shooting and the missing money, taking a cynical view of human nature and maintaining the black humour throughout.

Perhaps with a bigger budget, the film could have set up the backstory more and weaved even more of a web, giving us a few more glimpses of life outside the family home. However, this film is really effective story-telling and the stripped down feel gives the film a real individuality. It is focused, deliciously dark and a very enjoyable film.