‘Mum’s List’ review: “Deeply moving and upsetting, but altogether outstanding”

Mum’s List review: A deeply personal film based on the bestseller by St John Greene, Mum’s List is funny, movie and absolutely heart-breaking.

Mum’s List review by Paul Heath.

Mum’s List comes to the big-screen in this British feature from writer and director Niall Johnson who has adapted the bestselling novel of the same name by St John Greene. Based on a true story, the film follows a couple, Singe (Rafe Spall) and Kate (Emilia Fox) from North Somerset in the south west of England, whose lives are turned upside down when Kate is diagnosed with an incurable breast cancer. The film charts how the family cope with Kate’s terminal illness and the list she creates as a guide for her family to carry on her absence.

I cannot remember the last time a film made me immediately sympathise with its central characters, and hit me so hard to make me burst into tears within the first two minutes of starting. Both occurred during the early part of Mum’s List. Wonderfully written and directed by Johnson (White Noise), the film manages to avoid the stereotypical weepy plot devices and utilising every emotion-tugging trick in the book and instead crafts a wonderfully structured love story that almost celebrates life rather than focus on the loss of it.

A lot of why Mum’s List works is down to its wonderful cast, particularly the superb Emilia Fox as Kate, a heart-breaking piece to camera two-thirds in a stand out, but it is Rafe Spall who really shines here. The actor stars as the heart-broken, devastated Singe (the source material’s St John Greene), and through his near-perfect, massively sympathetic performance, a lot of which is conveyed using facial expression or physical movements rather than dialogue, he has never been better, and we’ll no doubt look back at this role as one of the defining points in his already solid career.

Clearly a personal project for both the filmmakers (Niall Johnson lived in the same town as the Greenes), and of course for St John who acts as a story consultant, Mum’s List has something that we can all identify with, and that’s what makes it all so close to heart and utterly devastating. It’s not a film I can personally say that I enjoyed, though there are some truly funny moments, but I’m glad I have seen it as it really deserves an audience. As it stands, this smaller-budgeted drama which could easily have slipped under the radar in an autumn season of heavyweight blockbusters and heavy awards-worthy fare, Mum’s List may end up being one of the most memorable of the latter half of 2016. Deeply moving and upsetting, but altogether outstanding. Don’t forget your tissues.

Mum’s List review, Paul Heath, November 2016.

Mum’s List is released across the UK on Friday 25th November, 2016.