Apron Strings

The Film Festival Committee must have liked this film a lot because they chose it for the Auckland opening. And the evening sessions here in Wellington sold out well in advance so the public must have liked the sound of it, in addition to showing commendable loyalty for local product.

This is a human relationships drama which explores the mother/son relationship and what happens to that relationship when the mother is a single parent. Apron Strings does this by telling the stories of 2 Auckland mother/son duos. One is a bakery-owning mother whose gambler husband committed suicide when her son (Barry) was in his teens. Barry is thirty-five, unemployed, addicted to gambling and still living at home. The other duo is an Indian TV personality (Anita) whose husband died when her son (Michael) was two. Anita brought up Michael alone because she was estranged from her family. Michael, now a university student, becomes interested in his estranged relatives and meets up with his childless Aunt who finds it difficult to deal with the fact that he's gay.

As you can tell there's enough fodder here to keep a bunch of counsellors and psychiatrists in business for months and that's without touching on any peripheral characters. It was well-acted and quite moving but didn't set me alight in any way.

Anne's rating 3/5
Ian's rating 3/5

The feature was proceeded by a short film, Take 3. Three "Asian" Kiwi actresses go to auditions, in each case they are asked re-do the scene, but this time "be more Asian". A funny dig at racial stereotyping.

Ian's rating 3.5/5