This film is mostly a 'two-hander'. It is set in 1934, when Lowry (Timothy Spall) was showing promise as an artist. It's quite intense and well acted, but sadly I don't think it represents his life or work adequately.
He only seems from the film to go about his day job, often pursued by cheeky kids, and then go home - at the same time every day - to his domineering and disapproving mother (Vanessa Redgrave). They both talk for hours in her claustrophobic bedroom, till he goes upstairs and secretly paints. It's worth noting that the director, Adrian Noble, also works in theatre.
The pair's conversations must be imaginary. However, Elizabeth Lowry is known to have been embittered at 'coming down in the world' to a lower-class industrial area, well conveyed in the film by long terraces on steep hills. She takes a rosy-eyed view of a neighbour, Mrs Stanhope (Wendy Morgan), who strikes her as posh. Dramatic irony: Mrs Stanhope and her husband (Stephen Lord) aren't happy together.
Lowry spies on Mrs Stanhope and it seems to be implied that he finds women inscrutable. There's no hint that he in fact had platonic female friends and was a football supporter, and also had a mischievous sense of humour (though it's amusing that he has clocks around the house, all telling different times - which is based on fact).
Vanessa Redgrave comes across as 'shabby-genteel' and tiresome but with some flashes of sensitivity. Timothy Spall gives Lowry a bemused manner and facial expression, as though never able to understand his mother. Both performances are memorable but I just don't think the film does Lowry enough justice.
An engaging short film is shown afterwards, 'Looking at Lowry', with Claire Stewart, a curator at 'The Lowry' in Salford.
He only seems from the film to go about his day job, often pursued by cheeky kids, and then go home - at the same time every day - to his domineering and disapproving mother (Vanessa Redgrave). They both talk for hours in her claustrophobic bedroom, till he goes upstairs and secretly paints. It's worth noting that the director, Adrian Noble, also works in theatre.
The pair's conversations must be imaginary. However, Elizabeth Lowry is known to have been embittered at 'coming down in the world' to a lower-class industrial area, well conveyed in the film by long terraces on steep hills. She takes a rosy-eyed view of a neighbour, Mrs Stanhope (Wendy Morgan), who strikes her as posh. Dramatic irony: Mrs Stanhope and her husband (Stephen Lord) aren't happy together.
Lowry spies on Mrs Stanhope and it seems to be implied that he finds women inscrutable. There's no hint that he in fact had platonic female friends and was a football supporter, and also had a mischievous sense of humour (though it's amusing that he has clocks around the house, all telling different times - which is based on fact).
Vanessa Redgrave comes across as 'shabby-genteel' and tiresome but with some flashes of sensitivity. Timothy Spall gives Lowry a bemused manner and facial expression, as though never able to understand his mother. Both performances are memorable but I just don't think the film does Lowry enough justice.
An engaging short film is shown afterwards, 'Looking at Lowry', with Claire Stewart, a curator at 'The Lowry' in Salford.