The kids are alright
When Jack Lemmon and millionaire Osgood Fielding III sailed off into the sunset at the end of Some Like It Hot Osgood was so smitten with the dragged up Lemmon that when he admitted he was actually a man as his final protest against the pairing the good-natured playboy quipped the memorable final line: “Nobody’s perfect.” Parents of TV teenagers should do well to remember this wise epithet.
The premise of A Mother’s Son is that a mother, played by Hermione Norris, is horror-struck by the suspicion that her teenage son may have had something to do with the murder of a local girl. With the backdrop of a still raw divorce after two years, and the recent haltering integration of Hermione’s family with that of her boyfriend Martin Clunes’ – they’ve both got two teenage kids, one boy and one girl, ooh the symmetry – it’s hardly as if things have been at their most re-assuring at home, but still all the kids seem to be reasonably well adjusted. Each parent knows their kids best, bickering is bound to occur, it’s a surprise they can afford a house where they all have their own bedrooms. They should be counting their blessings.
Instead it would seem that Hermione is crippled with parental guilt to such an extent that she sees suspicion in every corner – and it’s her fault her son is, well, a bit moody. To be fair, he’s not even that moody, he even gives her a hug voluntarily. Streuth. What she has are trainers he claims to have lost hidden under his bed with what she suspects might be blood on them. Oh, and a hot wash of a school uniform no one will own up to. Yes, if this was someone else’s child with an attitude you might start making mad mathematical sums involving two plus two and the results possibly coming out at something other than four, but really? Your own son? Couldn’t it just be that he got into a fight after school and doesn’t want to admit that, just as a one-off, he might have got his new white shoes mucky? Just saying.
“There’s a trend for grown-ups to be scared of teenagers”
There’s a trend for grown-ups to be scared of teenagers. Ever since invention of the hoodie and the ASBO – actually before that, think Marlon Brando and James Dean – young people going through their own troubles and developing into their own individuals seems to be seen as a threatening thing. This teenage son isn’t really rebelling – hidden trainers, possibly perving at his new step-sister and a very dubious internet history should not a psychopath make. Where is the love?
Here’s the thing… a lot of this suspicion seems to be propelled by Hermione’s guilt that she’s put her son through the ringer, emotionally speaking, in leaving his dad and taking up with old ‘Big Ears’ Clune. Maternal guilt knows no bounds, but it’s a bit egocentric to think you could turn a perfectly nice son into a killer by breaking down the marital home. This way Thatcher’s broken families lie, with the huge burden of not being a nuclear family in turn meaning more latch-key kids
and hooliganism.
They have a very nice home, a perfectly good family, a loving relationship (starting out to show him how that can work), and even a kid sister he looks out for.
Clearly they’ll keep us guessing throughout this series as to exactly who done what, and it is well acted and interestingly scripted. Yes, as a parent Hermione might be flawed, but I say again: “Nobody’s perfect.”
A Mother’s Son, ITV1, Sunday 2 September 2012
