E-Mail This Article to a Friend Mother love Roger Michell, Hanif Kureishi, and Anne Reid hold forth BY GERALD PEARY

Born in 1957 in South Africa, Roger Michell has been all over the place as a filmmaker living and working in England, the director behind a Jane Austen adaptation (the 1995 Persuasion), a screwball comedy (the 1999 Notting Hill), and a Hollywood neo-noir (the 2002 Changing Lanes). Of the last, he explained at Cannes 2003, "For a British director to go to New York and shut down a street is very exciting, though grotesque in a way." Although he didn’t get the ending he wanted for Changing Lanes, Michell was philosophical: "I don’t expect to go to Hollywood and say whatever I like." But he was surprised by the studio reaction when he objected to the trailer. "I sent a fax saying, ‘It’s 100 percent wrong. I’m sure you will instantly retract it.’ I never heard from them."

A devalued gun for hire on Changing Lanes, Michell returned to England and made his least commercial film ever, and perhaps his best work: The Mother, the story of the passionate romance between an elderly woman, May (Ann Reid), newly widowed, and a handsome young stud, Darren (Daniel Craig), who is half her age and already involved with May’s adult daughter. For the script, Michell enlisted novelist/screenwriter Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Launderette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid), with whom he’d collaborated on a TV mini-series based on Kureishi’s novel The Buddhist of Suburbia.

"Nobody wanted to make The Mother," Michell said at Cannes. "It was only because we were willing to reduce the budget to its lowest that it got produced." He cited other movies about older women and much younger men, Harold and Maude (1972) and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974). "But they weren’t really about sex like The Mother, addressing the issue head on."

"My mother is very elderly," Kureishi joined in. "I think she’ll like it. Films now such as The Matrix are for children. We wanted a film for older audiences and deeper minds."

"We try to mirror life," Michell said, "which is full of deep despair and sudden humor."

Michell acknowledged having trouble casting the oft-nude May until BBC veteran Anne Reid agreed to play the part. "One actress said, ‘I’m insulted by this script, appalled that you would send it to me.’ "

Kureishi added, "Women don’t mind taking their clothes off. Men do, not because of their genitals. It’s because of their stomachs."

Changing the subject, I asked Kureishi about his early reading. "When I was a kid, I read Salinger, Toni Morrison, Raymond Carver, particularly Carver. There’s no better novelist than Philip Roth."

Is it more exciting writing fiction than screenplays? "It’s all storytelling. It’s all awful, boring, hard work, but there are profound pleasures. All novels are made into films. There’s no fiction on earth that will not be turned into celluloid in the future. My children love movies, they have DVD players in their bedrooms. I’m not one of those who fetishizes reading. How could my wife or I say, ‘Turn that film off’? My wife is an executive producer at the BBC."

Back to The Mother, and a Cannes chat with Anne Reid. "People say I’ve been brave to do The Mother. I didn’t find it that hard. Film is all acting. May does develop, doesn’t she? How many real parts are there for women my age? Usually I’m in the kitchen making sandwiches, or dying in a hospital.

"I know this woman, May. I know who she is. I’m also a widow, who left my career, who gave up for a very long time when my husband died. The story? It’s Hanif’s thing. He writes about not the most attractive people. But part of the filming was an easy process. Roger is so confident. I often work with young, inexperienced people, so it was such a joy working with such a master. But I’m not saying I didn’t argue with him. This story of a 65-year-old woman, they thought it was about sex. May wants more: romance. That’s what I argued about. I feel strongly about how a woman thinks. The same with Darren. He was kind to May and saw her need. It wasn’t about sex. He was having sex all over the place.

"I never felt like his mother for a minute. You can talk about the Oedipus complex, but it’s not relevant. I didn’t have any problem with the sex scene with Daniel. I had a problem with 17 other guys in the room, the crew. I was worried about showing my body until my 32-year-old son said, ‘My God, go for it. It’s a great part. It’s only your pride stopping you.’

"I wanted a different ending. I asked Roger, ‘Can’t I go to Italy and find a nice young Frenchman?’ The movie hasn’t changed anything. In life, I live in hope, but I wouldn’t have the confidence to go up to a young man."