Filmmaker Jesse Lewis-Reece’s short film Mother of Mine is a story of grief and the challenge of learning to live with newfound burdens. Grief isn’t new thematic territory for filmmakers so the challenge with returning to its well-trodden soil is always to show an aspect of it that hasn’t been explored before. Lewis-Reece’s film does this through its attention to detail and specificity, showing how the nuances of gestures can reveal repressed sadness or how locations can quickly switch from being bustling family homes to ghostly vacant spaces. It’s an extremely gripping watch and one that speaks to how the personal can become universal. DN is proud to premiere Mother of Mine today in conjunction with a conversation with Lewis-Reece (whose BAFTA nominated short Eyelash we featured back in 2020), where he reveals the personal bereavement the film was born out of, his desire to find an actor you wouldn’t normally see in a dramatic role, and the construction of the short’s contemplative and methodical visual language.
What birthed the idea for Mother of Mine?
Mother of Mine was never intended to be a short film I wrote, never less directed and put into production. Except it was more of a response to my own personal way of dealing with onset grief, in a way I buried my head in the sand and looked to explore the feelings I was tackling through some sort of project, kind of removing myself from the real life affects it was having, or in a way having to accept it. The birth of the idea that became the screenplay for the film was born out of my own personal experience of suddenly losing my mother in the fall of 2021, this obviously had a huge impact on myself and my family, particularly my dad. I wanted to explore the feelings of onset grief, the immediate after-effects of losing someone, an element I felt less explored in art and cinema than grief over a substantial period of time.
How did you translate those feelings and observations into something that would become the film?
The project began as pages and pages of handwritten notes and observations of myself and my father’s feelings, actions, and logistical factors that had to be done, such as relaying the information. I wanted to explore how after such an event even your own home can become alien, a sort of ghost house, imprints forever left by a person that now ceases to exist in the physical world. There’s also an element of the film that explores denial, refusal to accept certain events and sometimes that makes you run from them, I wanted to explore the moral complexity of this as I experienced something similar myself.
At first I thought the notes would become some sort of personal diary entry or at most an essay that I could publish, or not, in trying to navigate some of these feelings which were completely new to me. I hadn’t experienced much death in my life until this moment, and so when it came in the shape of someone I loved so much it kind of encompassed me. I really never set out to take it much further than notes/essay writing format, but Thomas Wightman at the BFI got wind of the project as I had tried to make a number of films before through the BFI Network scheme and saw something in the notes I guess. In a way I was grateful that being taken with reworking it into a screenplay gave me further distraction from the real thing, and so I attempted to convert the notes into somewhat of a linear screenplay.
I wanted to explore how after such an event even your own home can become alien, a sort of ghost house, imprints forever left by a person that now ceases to exist in the physical world.
I’m curious to know what you were jotting down that would be translated into a screenplay.
Things jump out at you; you start noticing all the idiosyncrasies of life, focusing on things like a door shutting without knowing why. I went from analysing myself, and what I was going through, to analysing my dad, and how he was experiencing the same thing.
How did the BFI support the film both as a story and a production?
When it got commissioned by the BFI, I took off my writer’s hat and looked at the project as a director, suddenly realising that the success of the film hung on the casting. This is a short film that is very slow, has minimal dialogue, is about grief but not much happens, plot-wise. That’s already three red flags. I thought, how am I going to pull this off? I really needed someone who was able to carry all that without much effort. I thought it would be interesting to use someone, who, from frame one, makes you pause and think, I didn’t expect them.
Most Popular
Was that what led you to Robert Webb?
I started thinking about comedy actors who could play against type, then remembered that Webb, who rose to fame as dysfunctional housemate Jez in Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show, had also written eloquently about grief in his autobiography How Not To Be a Boy. I instinctively felt that he would be able to do that ‘flip’. He felt deeply connected to the source material. My producers thought the chances of securing such a big name for a short film were slim, particularly with a tight timeframe, but I was determined to win him over and wrote Webb a personal pitch. I didn’t expect to hear anything, but he got back to us, read the script and we met for lunch. The rest is history. As soon as I cast him in that role, the film started revolving around him.
How did the film’s visual language form? What did you draw from in the story that shaped the visual architecture?
I was keen for the visual language and overall feel of the film to reflect the script and David’s story heavily, I had made previous work that has often been quite kinetic, fast-paced and full of energy, lots of cuts, camera movement and sensory sound design. With this film, I wanted to do the polar opposite, slow, methodical, and almost absent of too much craft at times. I felt the script asked for this and found it an interesting test to essentially throw away every safety net I had used before in filmmaking. To go against your own ‘natural approach’ in service of the story.
With this film, I wanted to do the polar opposite, slow, methodical, and almost absent of too much craft at times.
Sometimes, during the edit of a film, new ideas can emerge. Did anything change at all or come to you during post-production?
During the editing process, I began to lift my head from the deep dive I was exploring and started to see the film for what it could also be, a love letter to my mother for my family and close friends. I designed the opening to reflect that and with the story about exploring that feeling of loss, I wanted it to have a warm feeling around the red-haired woman in the film that represents my own mother, she’s shown through all the female characters in the film at different ages, in an attempt to create a time capsule of her in a way.
The story you’re making is so specific to you but I feel like you’re also speaking to something collectively universal.
When it came down to it I knew it was a project in which I was exploring a feeling that’s personal but very universal. It was the first time I was a little less focused on the outcome and more interested in the process of discovery. I think the film is quite different from the first draft, and also for a short it’s a very slow piece, absent of much narrative or traditional engagement. But I was keen to explore that space and try and find a feeling that I felt in literal moments after I was told my mother had passed. I would hope anyone who has experienced something similar can find little details that they relate to. It really was an exploration of trying to make something where people who have experienced grief can point at and go ‘I think I know what you mean. I’m not sure I fully understand it either, but I recognise the feeling’.
When it came down to it I knew it was a project in which I was exploring a feeling that’s personal but very universal.
How much guidance or direction, if any, did you give Robert on set?
It was an amazing experience to work with Robert in the way he prepared for the role. During prep he was so accommodating and communicative in talking about the story and character, and we spoke at length about our approach to the film and who David might be. I wanted to give him some freedom in the role as well as it is heavily inspired by true events and my Dad in places. It was an interesting contrast on set where Robert seemed a lot more distant than in prep, at first I began to think I may have done something wrong or lost him somewhere along the way, but I soon tuned into this was how he was embodying the character and helping himself stay in the moment. He later clarified that as it was a departure from his more known comedy work, he found it beneficial to stay in that place in order to find the right nuance when the camera was rolling.
It was really special to work with someone in this way that felt truly authentic and absent of anything else other than trying to bring the best performance. When we wrapped the Robert I knew from prep reappeared and he told me about how his approach helped him. It was an experience that I took a lot from in terms of understanding actors and their processes.
What’s next for you?
I am currently writing a feature that I aim to direct as my debut into long-form developed by Blink Productions, I have another short or two I’d like to explore but the aim is to break into HETV or features as soon as I can! I also continue to work on directing narratively and emotionally led commercials in the advertising space too.
