Keeping Mum (2005)

When British vicar Rowan Atkinson and his beautiful but troubled wife Kristen Scott Thomas hire a new housekeeper, they are unaware of what they are getting themselves involved in. Giving one of her most subtle performances with a twist, Maggie Smith takes great pleasure in sticking it to the notion that little old ladies can be deadly...and funny. Having killed a cheating husband and mistress years before, she's out on the street and suddenly finds herself working for Atkinson and Thomas, having a past involving Thomas, and doing everything she can (and I mean everything and anything!) To protect them.In a hysterical small part, Patrick Swayze plays a lecherous tennis pro who is lusting over Thomas's daughter while reducing her. Besides Swayze, there's also a neighbor with a non-stop barking dog and a pesky old lady (the amusing Liz Smith) who keeps bugging Atkinson about church flowers. The young son gets aide from Smith in dealing with school bullies, and Atkinson gets help with sermon issues and ideas for a month major conference he's expected to speak at. Googling God for giggles adds on more laughs, and it's all subtle and deliciously dark. Call this "Serial Mom Senior Style" with a British style rarely seen since the Ealing comedies, and you get the picture.

Pregnant Rosie Jones (Emilia Fox) is caught with her husband and his mistress chopped up in a trunk while riding the train. She is imprisoned for a lesser charge of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. Years late in Little Wallop, Gloria (Kristin Scott Thomas) is the long suffering wife of reverend Walter Goodfellow (Rowan Atkinson). Her daughter Holly (Tamsin Egerton) is sexually promiscuous. Her son Petey is being bullied. She's having an affair with her golf instructor Lance (Patrick Swayze). Then the new housekeeper Grace (Maggie Smith) arrives. She saves the struggling family with her unconventional solutions and reveals her real connection. It's a quirky British black comedy. There are a couple of chuckles. It's not a gut-busting comedy. It's more of a sly dig at the reserved British persona with a kindly serial killer. It's mildly funny.

Niall Johnson directs "Keeping Mum". The film's a black comedy in the vein of "The Trouble With Harry", "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and "The Ladykillers", Johnson trying to resurrect a very specific type of British comedy typically associated with Ealing Studios. Situated in West London, the Studios have been in use since 1902, but are best remembered for a spate of uncompromising, relentless, tightly constructed black comedies released in the early 1950s. Johnson's film is not in the same league."Keeping Mum" stars Rowan Atkinson and Kristin Thomas as a married couple living in small town Britain. Thomas' mother, a seemingly wonderful elderly woman called Grace Hawkins (Maggie Smith), stops by for a visit. Problem is, Grace is a mass murderer who just can't stop killing. In an effort to solve her family's various marital, personal and domestic issues, Grace thus sweeps in like a demented Marry Poppins and proceeds to murder, maim and, in her own peculiarly homicidal way, mend her family. The film ends with religious faith and more banal everyday beliefs being conflated, psychotic, solipsistic fantasies holding the family's world together. See David Lynch.The humour in the film is derived from a very specific clash, the film rural, pleasant, laid-back and polite on one hand, and positively macabre on the other. Perhaps the best example of this is Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry", a film which, despite being over half a century old, Johnson still can't quite better; "Keeping Mum" isn't as sharp, witty or perceptive as its predecessors. Still, Maggie Smith and Rowan Atkinson are always worth watching. Over the years they've become national treasures, more endearing cultural assets than actors.7.9/10 - Worth one viewing.

This was fun,the movie stands out distinctly amongst British comedies.I am very fond of comedy flicks especially British ones and i have to say that keeping mum was a great addition to my list of comedies so far.The subject touches the day to day lives of few people in a small village where the whole movie is based.The acting is superb and the story even better,British comedies show us how a film can be made to succeed with a simple background and no unusual stuff and so this film is all about that.I enjoyed watching this one & especially MAGGIE SMITH's performance which was top of the class.Never miss movies like this and so i recommend this one to all the fans..Real good stuff!!!