Four Mothers opened the Seattle International Film Festival with a premise that borders on the absurd yet unfolds with surprising emotional clarity. Edward, a young Irish novelist on the verge of a major breakthrough, is left to care not only for his aging, speech-impaired mother but also for the mothers of three absent friends who've jetted off to the Canaries for Pride weekend. It's a setup that might sound like a sitcom on paper, but director Darren Thornton grounds it with real emotional stakes. What begins as an inconvenient favor quickly becomes a portrait of caregiving, generational friction, and the quiet compromises made in the name of love and duty. Thornton avoids cheap laughs or melodrama, crafting a story that's consistently funny, unexpectedly moving, and refreshingly sincere.

 James McArdle's Edward is at the center, caught between who he wants to become and who he feels obligated to remain. His mother, Alma, played with astounding subtlety by Fionnula Flanagan, communicates only via an iPad. Despite this limitation, Flanagan delivers a towering performance, her expressive face doing the work of entire monologues. Her voice device—deadpan by design—becomes one of the film's most effective comedic tools. There's a delightful dissonance between the emotion of a moment and the flat, robotic tone of her delivery, which Thornton smartly returns to again and again. It never stops being funny, not because the film is mocking Alma, but because it so brilliantly captures the gap between how we feel and how technology sometimes forces us to express it. Alma is tough, proud, and nostalgic—her longing for the past conveniently erases its hardships, including the husband, who never quite accepted their son. Edward, in turn, wrestles with the guilt of wanting something more. In a quiet but powerful motif, the film draws a subtle parallel between Alma and Edward: both having lost their voices. Alma, literally, and Edward, figuratively—as his life becomes consumed by the needs of others, stifling his creative and personal expression. He speaks, yes, but rarely for himself.

There's a running tension in Four Mothers between ambition and responsibility, between selfishness and selflessness. Edward's decision—whether to seize the opportunity of a U.S. book tour or stay home to continue caregiving—is never framed as simple. Instead, Thornton allows him to be complicated. McArdle captures the frustration and love tangled up in caretaking, as well as the unspoken resentment that builds when your life becomes an extension of someone else's needs.

This all unfolds amidst a makeshift commune of elderly women, enhancing the film's offbeat charm. The ladies have sharp tongues and sharper instincts, and their group dynamic hums with well-earned rhythms of mutual annoyance and newfound camaraderie. Watching them bicker or conspire to hold a séance for their dead husbands provides much of the film's comedy and thematic core: the idea that we're all haunted, not by ghosts, but by conversations we never had.

The séance subplot may seem silly, but it hits unexpectedly hard. It also opens the door for a rich undercurrent in the film: a consideration of generational difference, particularly between these four working-class Irish women and the sons they raised—each of them gay. The film never makes a spectacle of this shared detail, but it informs everything. How these women speak about the past, their husbands, and shame and pride subtly reflect how hard-won their current acceptance might be. It's there in how they show love—awkwardly, fiercely, imperfectly—and how that love shaped their sons' resilience. Listening to these women chase closure he's not sure he'll ever get, Edward feels the weight of what he's been denied.

Yes, Four Mothers flirts with sentimentality, but it never feels cheap. It's a film about aging, sacrifice, and how love can nurture and smother. But above all, it's about finding room for yourself when you've been living in service of others.

As an Opening Night selection at the Seattle International Film Festival, it sets the right tone—funny, sincere, and full of heart.