Mary´s Sons

Colour, 35 mm
Canada, France, 2002, 99 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Mary Hamel is a young woman who feels her whole world has come crashing down – a car accident has taken from her not only her husband but also her only son. She decides to deal with her despair and loneliness by placing an ad in the papers saying that she seeks a child who lacks maternal love. She immediately finds four “sons” who differ in age, social status and character; but they have one thing in common: they are willing to accept her care and love. Schoolboy Martin has to face a brutal father, the adolescent Victor escapes reality by entering the virtual world of computers and the young actor Alex is painfully trying to resolve the issue of his professional and sexual identity. The selfish bank clerk Paul may have a wife and two children, but once an orphan, always an orphan…. With her idealistic notions of a new life, Mary still encounters the same problems a mother would face in a normal family. Moreover, her relationship with Paul is disrupted by its “incestuous” nature. The young woman, however, is determined to see it through. She does not lose hope that her “sons” will help her to overcome the pain of her own loss and create a new, enriching and stable emotional world.

About the director

Carole Laure (b. 1951, Montreal) originally worked as an actress and teacher. She acquired her first acting experience at the age of 20, when Jean Chabot cast her in the film Mon enfance á Montréal (1971). Three years later she met director Gilles Carle who helped launch her acting career. Outside Canada she has worked with Bertrand Blier (Préparez vos mouchoirs, 1978) and John Huston (Victory, 1981). She tried her hand at directing in 1972 with the TV series La Feuille d’érable. The tragicomic Les Fils de Marie (Mary´s Sons) which, in spirit and style, develops the ideas of Pascal Arnold and Jean-Marc Barr, was not only directed, written and produced by Laure, but she also appears in the title role. She is a singer with a number of successful albums and the musical Fantastica (1980) to her credit; the latter was directed by Gilles Carle.