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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/21/2012 : 11:22:24
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It's nearly impossible to condense even one novel into 98 minutes of film time, let alone the seven fictionalized autobiographical books which barely disguise the evolution of the Melrose family over decades.
I confess I haven't read any of the highly-praised volumes, so I can't tell how many of the books Edward St Aubyn has chosen to include in his screenplay for Mother's Milk, but the film certainly stands on its own.
It quite convincingly introduces us to two generations of mums, each a sorry ad for the joys of parenthood, each not-quite-learning how to compromise in the face of real life. Each finding her own path through self-deception.
But - surprise, surprise! - a film is not a novel, and this one suffers greatly from preciousness and far too literary an approach. I'll get to that in a minute.
First, though, director Gerald Fox has, for all his inexperience, at least managed to create visual backdrops for all that inner angst which I imagine must have kept pages flipping.
But what books can do and films adapted from them can't quite manage, is to explore creatively the whys of people's actions, not just the facts of them.
And what drama must certainly do to earn its name, is to show process and development, not just narrate it.
Mother's Milk depends almost exclusively on narration. Granted it's split into sections [not exactly chapters], each presumably focused on a few key characters. These are narrated by attractive, dissolute pater familias Patrick Melrose [a suitably charming Jack Davenport, successfully hinting at his salad days] who also acts out his own voice-overs.
The other key voice is that of Patrick's young, highly articulate son Robert, who's embodied by the very talented Thomas Underhill.
I'll give you an example, because it's a perfect way NOT to make a movie. So there's this voice telling you in the third person that a bloke we've already established drinks much too much has promised himself not to drink again but that he needs a lot of coffee and some more drink. Over this, we see the guy take a seat at an outdoor cafe in lovely Provence. We see him gulp his coffee and start his binge as he eyes up an attractive young woman who returns his smile but quickly goes back to her book. And then the voice tells us that he's attracted to her and her smile must mean it's mutual.
That's writing not drama.
The whole film is like that. I guess maybe, in the mitts of a master, there might be a way to make such a technique work onscreen. But you'd have to have truly remarkable characters at least some of whom you care about.
For me, Fox isn't and I didn't.
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Mother's Milk
