Magic Lantern adds ‘Mothering Sunday’ to its lineup

Above : Josh O’Connor and Odessa Young star in “Mothering Sunday.” (Photo/Sony Pictures Classics)

Of the movies that opened around here last week, one snuck past me. Fortunately, that film, “ Mothering Sunday,” joins the Magic Lantern Theatre ’s lineup on Friday.

Another film the Lantern will add is the Michelle Yeoh vehicle “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which, too, is already playing locally elsewhere.

Whatever, “Mothering Sunday” – directed by French-born filmmaker Eva Husson and starring the Australian actress Odessa Young – is getting mostly passable reviews. The film is based on the 2016 novel of the same title by Graham Swift.

Young plays an English house maid whose secret affair with a man engaged to marry someone else has consequences that end up changing her life.

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “Count ‘Mothering Sunday’ as a breakthrough for Young, as well as one for Husson, who deserves the international career that ‘Mothering Sunday’ all but guarantees.”

Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine was more hesitant in her praise. “The picture is a bit arty and decorous,” she wrote. (I)t could do with fewer swimmy camera moves. But Young vests it with a fascinating, flinty grace.”

Meanwhile, A.O. Scott of the New York Times was fairly dismissive. “ ‘Mothering Sunday’ never conveys the intensity of erotic passion, the ardor of creative ambition or the agony of grief,” he wrote. “Even though it is ostensibly about … those feelings, it handles them with a tastefulness that is hard to distinguish from complacency.”

That leaves the final vote to you, the viewer, who as always is the final arbiter.