"The Mother" is a film dependent on its characters.

There's no driving plot and no concrete goals - the film is merely the slow look into the lives of a dysfunctional family living in London.

Director Roger Michell takes his time in this 2003 British film that explores the hidden personalities lurking inside our mothers.

When we first meet May (Anne Reid), she's a dowdy woman whose gray hair is thinly masked with a sandy brown tint and whose outfits generally are in hues of seafoam green. She's visiting her grown-up children in the city, along with her ailing husband who appears to be nearly 10 years her senior. It's no surprise when her husband dies a few nights into the visit.

Michell keeps the camera at bay during these early scenes, distanced from his actors at first, then slowly allowing the lens to creep in as we learn more about their lives.

We begin to understand May's hidden desires when she starts an affair with her son's carpenter, Darren (Daniel Craig). Not only is this affair scandalous because Darren is several decades younger than May, but because he is also the boyfriend of May's daughter, Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw).

Each character is sketched beautifully to the credit of the actors. Reid is especially good, giving an uncompromising and realistic performance.

Her courageous acting is tested in the film's explicit sex scenes. This is a 69-year-old woman who doesn't seem ashamed to bear it all.

The plague of a character-driven film, however, is always at its pacing. It's a pitfall "The Mother" fails to avoid. Although the hook is titillating - an older woman bedding a younger man - the film is slow-moving and comes dangerously close to losing its audience.

Almost every shot uses still camerawork. There's no panning, tracking, zooming - just cold and bare frames. Music is excessively sparse. Characters' speech is often synchronic and difficult to understand.

For such a drawn-out format, "The Mother's" message is worth waiting for. The film suggests older folks aren't merely clocking out on life. They still have unrealized dreams, unquenched desires. They're still looking to get it on.

"The Mother" will be playing at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Wells Hall. Students tickets are $3.