Cotton Mary (1999)

Directed by

Madhur Jaffrey, Ismail Merchant

Genre

drama film

Country

United Kingdom, France

Runtime

2h 04m

Rating

5.0 of 10 from 8 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A British woman struggling to feed her newborn baby hires a former Indian nurse as a nanny. The nurse becomes deeply involved in the household, while the husband pursues an affair with the nurse's niece. The story focuses on the shifting relationships and tensions between these characters.

melancholictenseslow-burnintimateemotionally complexvisually lushunsettlingsomber

What happens

Cotton Mary is a 1999 film co-directed by Ismail Merchant, best known as the producer half of Merchant Ivory, and the Indian actress and writer Madhur Jaffrey, who also co-starred. Most of story is about of the changes in the characters of Cotton Mary, a former hospital nurse, and her new employer, Lilly MacIntosh, as Mrs. MacIntosh deals with her inability to breastfeed her baby and employs Mary as a nanny. There is a subtext of Lilly's husband having an affair with Mary's niece who was a former co-worker at the hospital where Mary had worked. The film was shot in coastal South India. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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