The superb, heartbreaking drama, "Mothering Sunday," depicts the clandestine affair between Jane Fairchild (Odessa Young), a maid, and the upper-class Paul Sheringham (Josh O'Connor, of "The Crown"). Director Eva Husson maintains a firm grasp on the repressed emotions in a time — England after the Great War — as the characters are all filled with optimism and sadness in this adaptation of the Graham Swift novel.
The story features several narrative strands, which Husson effectively uses to create a prism to observe Jane at critical times in her life. The main thread has Jane and Paul meeting, discreetly, on a Sunday morning, (Mother's Day, 1924), for a tryst. It may be the couple's last encounter as he is engaged to wed Emma (Emma D'Arcy). A second plotline takes places a few decades later as Jane (Young again) is romantically involved with Donald (Sope Dirisu), a Black man in 1950s England. The last storyline jumps ahead a few more decades. Jane is now an old woman (Glenda Jackson).
