''Another Mother's Son'' is a 2017 British war

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by Christopher Menaul, written by Jenny Lecoat, and starring

Jenny Seagrove Jennifer Ann Seagrove (born 4 July 1957) is an English actress. She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and first came to attention playing the lead in a television dramatisation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's '' A Woman of Substance'' ...

Julian Kostov Julian Kostov ( bg, Юлиaн Костов; born 25 August 1989) is a Bulgarian actor, filmmaker, talent manager, and former professional swimmer based between London and Los Angeles. He starred in the film ''Another Mother's Son'' (2017). On tel ...

Ronan Keating Ronan Patrick John Keating (born 3 March 1977) is an Irish singer. He debuted in 1993 alongside Keith Duffy, Michael Graham, Shane Lynch, and Stephen Gately, as the co-lead singer (with Gately) of Irish pop group Boyzone. His solo career start ...

, John Hannah, and

Amanda Abbington Amanda Abbington (born Amanda Jane Smith; 28 February 1974) is an English actress. She is best known for playing Miss Mardle in ''Mr Selfridge'' and Mary Watson in '' Sherlock'', the BBC adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stor ...

. The film is based on a true story from the

German occupation of the Channel Islands The military occupation of the Channel Islands by Nazi Germany lasted for most of the Second World War, from 30 June 1940 until liberation on 9 May 1945. The Bailiwick of Jersey and Bailiwick of Guernsey are two island countries and British ...

, about a

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...

woman named

Louisa Gould Louisa Eva Gould (7 October 1891 – February 1945) was a Jersey shopkeeper and a member of the British resistance movement in the Channel Islands during World War II. From 1942 until her arrest in 1944, Gould sheltered an escaped Soviet slave ...

(played by Seagrove), who takes in an escaped young

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

war prisoner A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...

(played by Kostov).

Premise

(

) hides an escaped young Russian forced labourer, Fyodor Buriy played by

, from the German forces occupying Jersey during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, assisted by her sister

Ivy Forster Ivy Forster (1907 – June 1997) was a politician from Jersey. During World War II she and her family sheltered Russian forced labourers brought to the islands by the Nazis, activity that resulted in her sister being killed in a concentration camp ...

(

) and her brother Harold Le Druillenec (

Cast

as Fyodor "Bill" Buriy *

as Harold Le Druillenec * John Hannah as Arthur Forster *

as Ivy Forster *

Brenock O'Connor Brenock Grant O'Connor (born 9 April 2000) is an English actor and singer. He is best known for his portrayal of Olly in the HBO fantasy TV series '' Game of Thrones'' (2014–2016). He was part of the main casts of the British series ''Dickens ...

as Rex Forster * Peter Wight as René Le Mottée * Susan Hampshire as Elena Le Fevre *

Félicité Du Jeu Félicité du Jeu is a French actress. She is best known for her role as DC Stella Goodman in the BBC drama '' Waking the Dead''. Early life Du Jeu studied at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique de Saint-Germain-en-Laye from 1992 to 1996, and took ...

as Nicole * Gwen Taylor as Lily Vibert * Joanna David as Maud Vibert

Production

Christopher Menaul directed the film based on the script by Jenny Lecoat, Louisa Gould's great-niece.

Bill Kenwright William Kenwright, CBE (born 4 September 1945) is an English West End theatre producer and film producer. He has also been the chairman of Everton Football Club since 2004. Kenwright was born in Liverpool and attended Booker Avenue County Prima ...

's Bill Kenwright Films produced the film with Daniel-Konrad Cooper.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

on the film began on 9 November 2015 in

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. Filming also took place at the town's historic building

Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a "guild hall" or "guild house", is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commonly become town halls and in som ...

and

West London Film Studios West London Film Studios ("WLFS") is a British film studio and television studio complex located in Hayes, Middlesex. The studios cater to small and large productions; for films, television shows, TV adverts and photo shoots. History Frank ...

Release

The World Premiere Charity Gala was held in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

at the Odeon Leicester Square on 16 March 2017.

Critical reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 50% based on 16 reviews, and an average rating of 5.5/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* {{Christopher Menaul 2017 films British war drama films 2017 war drama films Films shot in England Films set on islands Films set in the Channel Islands Films set in the 1940s Drama films based on actual events Vertigo Films films World War II films based on actual events Films directed by Christopher Menaul 2017 drama films British World War II films Films scored by Mario Grigorov 2010s English-language films 2010s British films English-language war drama films