Josh O’Connor & Olivia Coleman Among Stars Cast in “Mothering Sunday”

Josh O'Connor. Photo by Jeff Gilbert/Shutterstock (10474334d)

Eva Husson’s The Motherly has announced its cast which will include Odessa Young (A Million Little Pieces), Josh O’Connor (The Crown, Emma, Gods Own Country), Olivia Colman (The Crown, The Favourite), and Colin Firth (1917, A Single Man, The King’s Speech). The film is based on the bestselling novel by Graham Swift and it’s penned by Alice Birch.

The story takes place in 1924 Beechwood, England where a maid in the Niven household named Jane Fairchild has the day off to celebrate Mother’s Day while Mr. and Mrs. Niven attend an event for the engagement of their neighbor’s son, Paul, to Emma Hobday. The Nivens’ sons were killed in the war and they’re excited to partake in the engagement party. Although Jane has no mother to visit, she still enjoys her day off. Jane was previously Paul’s lover for seven years, but this will be their last day as lovers. Paul, like the Nivens, is part of upper-class England and Jane was orphaned at birth. This Mother’s Day is the beginning of Jane’s new life.

“It truly felt like the planets aligned when this wonderful screenplay, ‘Mothering Sunday,’ somehow found its way to me,” Husson said in a statement. “Alice Birch seemed to whisper in my ear, and I felt everything I’d done so far prepared me for this specific story. It was a culmination of all that I am obsessed with in life: writing, sensuality, and pure cinema. I finished the script in tears, not from sadness, but because it cracked me open, like the most honest works do.”