MotherFatherSon Review

MotherFatherSon is a BBC miniseries about the struggles of a powerful family during a British general election.

Max Finch (Richard Gere) is a media tycoon who has the power to sway elections in the UK. His son, Caleb (Billy Howle) is the editor of one of his papers and lives in his father’s shadow. Their world is shaken when Caleb suffers a stroke just as two journalists look into allegations that Max used unethical techniques and Max decides on who to support for the upcoming election.

I am a politics enthusiast so MotherFatherSon ticked a lot of boxes for me. Talks about the relationship between the press and politicians and the role of the press brought back memories from my first year of university. There was some truth in the argument like does Max’s papers have as much influence as he thinks he has or does he simply want to be on the winning side.

MotherFatherSon was as subtle as a brick with its political commentary. The most obvious was with its portrayal of the Leader of the Opposition, Angela Howard (Sarah Lancashire). Angela Howard was a rich businesswoman who says she’s someone who can get things done, believes the people in power ignore the electorate and has authoritarian tendencies. She was a cross of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. Angela runs a divisive campaign that results in violence and has massive rallies. Some people were seen wearing red caps with a four-word slogan: the symbolism was obvious.

To add to the political commentary the Prime Minister (Danny Sapani) had been in power for 10 years and been portrayed by his opponents as someone more concerned about his international legacy than domestic issues. The Prime Minister states to his wife (Ginny Holder) that Angela Howard would reverse everything he has achieved. So he’s Britain’s Obama to Angela’s Trump.

Max was a Rupert Murdoch type. He owns two papers in the UK and two in the US. He has the power to meet political leaders and plans to start a dynasty. He also can find out anything through phone tapping and private investigators. Yet he has enough plausibility and distance to ensure others would get in trouble for actions whilst he can get off scot-free. Max makes protestations that he all he doing is reporting the truth, but this was a hollow statement. Max is shown to only care about his interests: the main reason he supports Angela because she offers to relax British broadcast reporting laws.

Some moments do not feel that realistic. One of the biggest incidents in the series was Angela’s car getting attacked and Max used the term ‘Stoned’ in the headline. He wrote the line for The National, which was a paper like The Times: but it would have been more fitting for a paper like The Sun or The Daily Mail. It was also implied that Angela set up the attack to help her campaign. A move that this makes the series go into conspiracy territory.

The other aspect of the show was the family drama. MotherFatherSon was a demented soap opera as Max, Kathryn (Helen McCrory), and Caleb try to over manoeuvre each other. Billy Howle gave a terrific performance as Caleb and he is an actor to watch out for. He started as a coked-out boy who was in over in his head and the stroke acted as a reset button. Howle was brilliant as Caleb recovered, learning to speak and walk again and falls into a depression when he has setbacks.

The cast does go beyond the Finches and many have their own arcs. Some worked better than others. Pippa Bennett-Warner had the role of Lauren, Max’s assistant and later editor of The National. Like Howle, Bennett-Warner is a rising star and her performance was fine in the series but she was miscast because she’s a young woman in a high powered position whilst also looking after a disabled child. She should either have been a mirror to Caleb because she was Max’s protégé or been an older character to be able to be in such a position and have a child.

MotherFatherSon acted a companion piece to another BBC series, Years and Years. Both focused on family drama as a dystopian government rises in the background. MotherFatherSon wanted to be the most serious approach compared to Years and Years’ more popularise approach.

MotherFatherSon had plenty of talent behind it and it was a well made, well-paced show. But it does have its problem with its political commentary and the way some of the characters were written.