I haven't read the book but the mom was so monstrous, so horrid in the movie...but I couldn't help wondering -- Sending Willie to the countryside to escape the danger of London during World War II would'e demonstrated that she cared for her son. Yet, every act when he returned home shows me that she absolutely didn't!
shareShe wasn't a paticuarly bad person...as such. Just screwed up by years of abuse herself. Her husband ruled over her with an iron hand and this, jointed with her Religion, made her flip at William for just about anything.
Just going by the film though, when he came down the stairs to his favourite meal the two of them were having a perfectly nice conversation. Again, it wasn't until religion became the topic again that she flipped.
It must also be remembered the amount of guilt she probably felt. The little baby was a result of a tryst with a man she was not married to. After feeling she failed her marriage, her son and now her daughter she commits suicide and tries to wipe her mistakes away by locking the children in the cupboard.
Not a nice act, but a desperate act of a seriously ill woman. If you look at it this way though there is a simplistic, psychotic logic to everything she does.
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matgrowcott.co.uk
Where Genius comes down to my level.
I thought they believe suicide is a mortal sin and she would be hell bound so commiting suicide doesn't make any sense for her.
shareHow could you miss it?
She sent her son away mainly because she had become a little bit pregnant and was too embarrassed to own up to it, especially after all the lies she liked to tell him by way of "facts of life." The baby came as "a present from Jesus" she explained. And he believed her.
Slightly off -topic, but it's a great performance from Annabelle Apsion, completely different character to her performance of Monica Gallagher :p
I think she did care, look at the scene where she makes him the boiled egg.
Read the book. If you think she's frightening in the movie, read the book. The movie doesn't do it anything even vaguely resembling justice.
(Admittedly, your post is almost two years old, so maybe you've read it by now. If you have, I'm curious to know what you thought.)
Cross my heart, smack me dead, stick a lobster on my head.
A small detail in the movie that I found a little hard to believe was when Tom and then William receives the message that William's mother wants him back. Tom just let William go, without protests. Yet he knew from the mother's letter about the belt and he had seen William's back with the scars from the belt. So it seems strange that he let William go back to his mother, just like that. Anyway, the movie is great all the same, this was just a minor thing that I found strange.
shareIn the book that poor newborn baby got bound and gagged. On hindsight, while I'm no expert, I think the mother was suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia (Paranoid Schizophrenics have delusional thoughts, are prone to aggression, and have suicidal tendencies).
She did come across as a religious nutter but then violence towards children is a national sport in England.
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
Im sorry? National sport?? Take it your not from England then. What a ignorant thing to say.
shareJust laugh like I did smbdm.
"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The violence would be a result of the terrible trio, religion,sexual repression and women. Combine all three and the women often take it out on those they have power over.
Talk to anyone raised in a children's home run by nuns and Who could forget the scandal of Magdalene laundry?