For me, this film will always be more personal than most because (and I still can’t believe I’m saying this) I lost my mother to COVID shortly before pre-production. It’s an unfortunate bond I ended up sharing with many of my cast and crew: Colin lost his mother in tumultuous circumstances in his early 20s; Aisling’s father took his own life when she was only three and Billie famously lost her mother, Carrie Fisher, and grandmother, Debbie Reynolds, within 48 hours of each other.
So what drew us all to this script?
I feel that post-pandemic, now more than ever, we need stories like And Mrs that let us laugh through the grief.
At the heart of this film is a nuanced relationship between two unforgettable female protagonists, Gemma and Audrey. They’re forced to travel back to the US to find the mother who abandoned Nathan and Audrey as children, and in doing so they shed a unique light on what constitutes familial love.
The film’s examination of universal themes like this and its international backdrop give it the capacity to travel beyond the usual cultural boundaries of most comedies and reach a global audience.
At the same time, the film is wonderfully specific to England. Gemma’s crusade becomes a device to explore her relationship with her late husband and thus London – the city where they lived and loved. Beyond that, thematically, the story is a rebellion against the famous British ’stiff upper lip’. Its rallying cry is that there is no ‘proper ’way to grieve, and that love can conquer all – even death.
I spent many years living in France, and they see the right to marry someone posthumously as a beautiful part of life. (Google the wedding of Etienne Cardiles to his late husband Xavier Jugelé). Gemma’s quest to marry Nathan is about a good old-fashioned forever love – one that’s beyond swiping right or left. And Mrs lets you laugh about love and grief like touchstone films, The Big Chill or Four Weddings and a Funeral. At the same time, the writer Melissa and I are both Aussie, and we see the parallels to the classic comedy, Muriel’s Wedding.
It’s incredibly personal to me and I’m excited to share it with you. (And I hope you like The Partridge Family too!)
