Amazon.com Essentials:
Terry George, the cowriter of
In the Name of the
Father, wrote and directed this 1996 drama based on actual
events from 1981, when Irish Republican Army prisoners in Belfast's
Maze Prison staged a hunger strike to protest against British prime
minister Margaret Thatcher's political policies. Led by IRA prisoner
Bobby Sands, the hunger strike eventually lead to the deaths of 10
prisoners, who had refused to wear prison uniforms to emphasize their
identity as political (and not criminal) prisoners. But this
fictionalized account is not about the hunger strikers as much as the
moral dilemma faced by two of the strikers' mothers, played by Helen
Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan in an emotional drama that gets right to
the heart of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. While Annie
(Flanagan) understands her son's political motivations and supports
his readiness to die, Kathleen (Mirren) is a pacifist who cannot
comprehend how any mother could sacrifice her own son to a political
principle. The women become friends despite their opposing views, and
desperately hope for a compromise in Irish-British negotiations while
the hunger strikers continue to wither away. By keeping the Northern
Irish conflict on such a purely personal level, Some Mother's
Son both clarifies and complicates the difficult issues involved,
making clear arguments for both mothers' actions in the context of a
milestone event in Northern Ireland's history. The film doesn't
pretend to hide its anti-British position, but the cause of death on
both sides is deeply acknowledged. Through Helen Mirren's richly
layered performance, Some Mother's Son asks if any belief is
truly worth dying for, and poses the question on powerfully personal
terms. --Jeff Shannon
