Mummy’s Boys

More than twenty years after her death, the ghost of a highly manipulative mother lingers on the minds of her five sons who are now well into their middle-age, haunting them. In Mummy’s Boys, it all begins in 2002 with the resentful farewell letter she left behind; a letter which concluded with the bloodcurdling threat “I’ll be back!” The need to understand her toxic nature and make peace with their jumble of emotions sparks an inventive docudrama, where the skeletons in the closet take center stage, the real-life protagonists intertwine with actors, and the atmosphere evokes Hitchcock’s Psycho, Vinterberg’s family reenactments, and von Trier’s expressive versatility. So, what if cinema cannot ultimately heal wounds? What matters is that it’s able to stir something essential within us.