Mother’s Pride Review

The team that made the Fisherman’s Friends films has moved up from Cornwall to Somerset for their recent comedy-drama inspired by true events.

The Drover Arms is a struggling pub in the village of Birchbury. The landlord, Mick Harley (Martin Clunes), is on the verge of losing his family business. Tensions within the family erupt when the prodigal son, Cal (Jonno Davies), returns to the village after missing his mother’s funeral. Cal suggests the family compete in CAMRA’s annual Great British Beer Festival, and the experience offers the pub a chance for survival and allows Cal to repair his relationships.

Mother’s Pride continues a trend in British cinema of films loosely based on true stories and appeals to older, middle-England audiences. It worked for the Fisherman’s Friends movies, and Mother’s Pride has already done well in its opening weekend in the UK, earning over £707,000, making it the biggest British film of 2026 so far.

The filmmakers did use the Fisherman’s Friends films as a template. They were set in picturesque parts of the UK, celebrated tradition and local culture, had a locals vs toffs conflict, showing a budding relationship, and featured a young girl playing an important role. There was even an important role for a British institution, Fisherman’s Friends showed the RNLI’s life-saving work, whilst Mother’s Pride celebrated the Campaign for Real Ale’s cultural preservation.

Mother’s Pride did go down well with the audience I was with. They laughed when they meant to, and I did chuckle at times. There were 12A friendly sex jokes, like Dawn the taxi driver (Lola-Rose Maxwell) being promiscuous, and a young girl asking what hookers and dogging were. A funny sequence was when a Morris Dancing trope tried Cal’s first batch of beer, and his brother suffered the morning-after consequences.

There was local bias since Mother’s Pride was filmed near where I live. There were murmurs when they saw familiar sights, like Norton St. Philips and Milsom Street in Bath, to more mundane locations like Westbury Train Station. It’s amusing that a film set in Somerset needed to film scenes in Wiltshire. It was odd for a Somerset film to disparage cider, a drink the county’s famous for.

Mother’s Pride did have a solid cast. Jonno Davies was in his first major role since Better Man, playing another depressed musician. His character did feel similar to Tom Basden’s Herb McGwyer in The Ballad of Wallis Island, a musician who had lost their mojo. Davies’ Cal and Lana Moorcroft’s Romy were used to explore some bigger issues involving mental health and ADHD, on a surface level. Brewing beer gave the pair a healthy outlet and allowed uncle and niece to bond. Martin Clunes is a beloved actor, and he channelled his Doc Martin character since he was a curmudgeonly fella who had poor people skills. James Buckley was the other member of the Harley family, and he was the nerdier son who was trying to help his dad, but Mick was keeping him in the dark.

The most notable characters were in supporting roles. Luke Treadaway played the brewery owner and the antagonist of the film. The character was cartoonishly one-dimensional, but Treadaway did the job that he was meant to do: be a punchable posh twat. The other was Mark Addy, who had a purely comedic relief role since he was the local drunk and Mick’s most local patron. Addy had standard drunk guy jokes, but he made it work.

Mother’s Pride did the job it set out to do: be a piece of light entertainment for older audiences. It was safe if unremarkable, but it did have some West Country flavour.