Gayle's good-natured fight to reconcile with a person who sees nothing wrong with her own behavior proves both a fascinating character study and an intimate portrayal of a mother's love turned hostile.
"Mother" is definitely worth a look as an involving exercise in parental indiscretion, unexamined and over-examined lives, and a nostalgic look at East Coast Jewish culture.
For a movie that promises an “epic journey” to explore a family’s “long-buried suffering,” it’s strangely unsatisfying, and eventually wearisome, to find that this clan is deeply troubled perhaps only in the eyes of its filmmaker.