This is a British family drama in the best sense of the phrase. It's been made simply, with no fancy direction and on a low budget, and the result is a witty and touching piece.

Roger Michell, who directed Notting Hill, has taken Hanif Kureishi's story of a mother who falls in love with her daughter's boyfriend, and made a sensitive and absorbing film.

Anne Reid plays May, a woman who has lived for her husband for years and has never known the meaning of the word independence. When her husband dies on a trip to visit their children in London, May decides to stay in the big smoke, and see what the world has to offer.

What's on offer, she soon discovers, is Darren, her daughter Paula's boyfriend, who is the only person who pays the old lady any real attention.

So while her son and daughter and their families carry on with their busy and bustling lives, May embarks on an exciting and forbidden affair with a man less than half her age - and with whom her daughter is completely besotted.

May is lost in life, and is simply trying to find her way on her own. She cannot deal with the complexities of her relationships with her children - they keep bringing up issues that she's never even considered about their childhood - so she escapes into her own secret world with Darren.

You see? I'm defending her! That's the beauty of the film. A woman who would normally be seen to be betraying her own daughter is portrayed in such a sensitive light in a part that is acted with such understatement, that the audience cannot help but love her.

This portrait of an older lady re-evaluating her life is drawn perfectly by Michell and his leading lady Anne Reid.

Although there really should be a 'don't try this at home' warning at the end to all mums who fancy a bit of their daughter's hunky young lad!

Natalie Stone