{"id":805325,"date":"2026-03-05T09:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T09:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/805325\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T09:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T09:20:13","slug":"mothers-pride-review-flat-cap-populism-and-weak-beer-in-martin-clunes-post-brexit-pub-comedy-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/805325\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother\u2019s Pride review \u2013 flat-cap populism and weak beer in Martin Clunes post-Brexit pub comedy | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fisherman\u2019s Friends<\/a> team have found a modestly profitable post-Brexit niche: tales of culturally endangered Anglo-Saxon endeavours, nudged towards gentle uplift via a few songs and laughs, dollops of sentiment and some rabble-rousing populism. First it was half-forgotten sea shanties; now it\u2019s the dwindling pub trade, represented here by rival West Country establishments. On one streetcorner, spit-and-sawdust local the DroversArms, overseen by salt-of-the-earth (read: emotionally repressed) widower Martin Clunes, who is slowly being strangled by his grasping brewery\u2019s supply chain. On the other, that same brewery\u2019s la-di-da gastropub, owned and somewhat implausibly operated by posho Pritchard (Luke Treadaway).<\/p>\n

The scene may have shifted indoors \u2013 gone, alas, is the Cornish scenery of Fisherman\u2019s Friends \u2013 but the formula remains much the same: clunky exposition, upper-case \u201cIssues\u201d, variably groansome dad gags. Tension emerges between Clunes and prodigal son Jonno Davies, until the latter proposes a radical idea to save the business: homebrewing. Davies has an awkward reunion with old flame Gabriella Wilde, who is now shacked up with Treadaway and doubtless eating swan for breakfast. But the resolutions really are arbitrary: it takes barely 10 minutes for the villager who sabotages the microbrewery to crowdfund its replacement. Co-writer and director Nick Moorcroft must be praying that audience sympathy for rickety, no-frills structures like the Drovers will extend to the film itself.<\/p>\n

The cast nurdle matters along to the climactic real ale awards, which becomes the scene of current cinema\u2019s least surprising surprise result. Clunes at least troubles himself to cobble a character together out of whatever was set before him, and Mark Addy \u2013 as the town drunk \u2013 commits gamely to an asthmatic running gag involving disco-infused morris dancing. Josie Lawrence and Miles Jupp, briefly glimpsed, could have improvised a funnier film between them. Would-be cheeky nods to TikTok and dogging are delivered in the manner of a backbench MP, and there surely has to be a stronger case for preserving our pubs than \u201clast refuge for middle-aged depressives\u201d. Ken Loach and Paul Laverty almost did it with 2023\u2019s The Old Oak<\/a>, but Moorcroft\u2019s mild variant is weak beer, to say the least.<\/p>\n

\u25cf Mother\u2019s Pride is in UK and Irish cinemas from 6 March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fisherman\u2019s Friends team have found a modestly profitable post-Brexit niche: tales of culturally endangered Anglo-Saxon endeavours, nudged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-805325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116175832804807589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}