Mother

Competent but desperately unexciting family drama has Gray trying to put "senile" mother Miller into a home. Meanwhile Miller intends to go to a town that no longer exists on a train that no longer runs. Perhaps in honour of silent star Miller, the film has piano accompaniment throughout and is composed of mainly static shots with people entering and exiting as though they're in a play. It's all talk, no action, apart from inexplicable footage of a woman being chased with a butterfly net. I'd love to know how teenage producer/director/writer Minette managed to get the two veteran actresses to participate (presumably for free)in such a dull project. But Miller, in what was to be both her comeback and her swan song, isn't bad. In 2009 Minette added a written prologue in which he claims that the film was shot in 5 days in the Plaza Hotel, Montrose, Texas, for $1,500. This version, now available on Video Archive, runs 65 minutes.