“We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they’ve come.” This line from Barbie (2023) is a certified tearjerker and certainly makes us reflect on our relationships with our mams, especially as Mother’s Day is coming up this Sunday. Motherhood is a complex thing, and its beauty and faults have been portrayed on screen in a myriad of ways.
Movies and television where the real love story centres on the love between mother and daughter always hold a special place in my heart. Mamma Mia (2008) went ten times platinum in my house, and every time “Slipping Through my Fingers” starts, the tears start flowing. By the end of the film, the relationship between Donna and Sophie consolidates and becomes all the more heartwarming: Sophie doesn’t need three potential dads. All she needs is her mother. Though we never meet her mother (given her off-screen death), in Fleabag (2016), she haunts the narrative. Her death has an everlasting effect on Fleabag, provoking her to continuously steal the statue of her mother from her Dad’s new wife. The heartfelt conversation between her and her Dad in the finale helps Fleabag accept her grief causing her to realise what she wants in life, soon allowing the love she has for her mother to guide her through the pain that will eventually pass (and yes, I am still bitter that she did not end up with Hot Priest, but I know it is not the message of the show).
For me, Lady Bird (2017) immediately comes to mind as a film that endearingly explores the difficult side of mother-daughter relationships. Greta Gerwig’s direction and script, combined with stellar performances from Laurie Metclaf and Saoirse Ronan, cement the often heartbreaking narrative that motherhood, along with letting go, holds immense pain. Similarly, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2023) takes a more multidimensional look at this relationship, with Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) trying to stop her daughter, Joy/Jobu (Stephanie Hsu), from destroying the universe through her nihilism. Despite its comical exploration of universes where the characters have hot-dog fingers or are sentient rocks, the mending of their relationship against the backdrop of the multiverse collapsing proves that our mothers would cross all and any realms to save us.
Though we also have to mention some mother-certified tearjerkers: Steel Magnolias (1989) and Terms of Endearment (1983). Shirley MacLaine classics show the beauty of motherhood and community. That is, if you can commit to watching them through glassy eyes and going through multiple packs of tissues. If you go into any 80s movie featuring a strong mother-daughter relationship, there is a 99 per cent chance one of them will be dead by the end of the movie.
However, the most iconic mam in cinema is Mrs Bennet, played excellently by Brenda Blethyn in Pride and Prejudice (2005). Her mania and hyperactivity are iconic, and her constant worrying for her daughters is entertaining. Although if anyone has a mother like her, they would probably go insane. Even her counterpart in the loose adaptation, Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), is equally, if not more, hyper and would drive anyone round the bend with her off-the-cuff remarks about people’s past wives and her sex life.
Seeing heartfelt portrayals of motherhood on screen, even with its ups and downs, makes us think about how important our mothers are and what we would do without them. Our mothers made us and raised us, and giving back to them is something they truly deserve.
Photo by Nick Grabowski on Openverse.
