I'm outraged at the father!

I actually found the portrayal of Sonny to be very interesting (and well-acted). A lesser film would have cast a larger, tougher-looking actor, indicated an unhappy marriage from the beginning and made him instantly hateable. Instead, they cast Ben Whishaw (a very likeable actor who usually plays much more sympathetic roles), and Maud and Sonny initially seem to have a decent relationship. He is shown to be considerate toward her (for example, offering to deliver the parcel) and they have a comparatively happy home. I would even say that he loves her - up to a point.

Of course he becomes a lot less likeable when he throws out his wife, insults her, implies she has deliberately hurt the family, and cruelly refuses to let her see their son. However, giving up George for adoption is arguably the right decision. Sonny says to Maud that they have been ostracized from the community. He has doubtless lost his job at the laundry and will find it hard to get another one without a reference. In 1912, there was no welfare state to provide support for them. Giving up George could not only give him a more secure future, but even save his life (particularly given that he was ill at the start of the film). Of course, it is awful for Sonny to do it without discussing it with Maud, or at least letting her say goodbye, but I didn't find his choice entirely unsympathetic.


You don’t have to be angry to have an opinion worth hearing.

This scene made me cry! The little actor who played the son was really good.

But that's exactly how it was done we often judge the past by our modern standards imagine what someone would think about us in 2015 in the year 2115 they would see us as backward and cruel. I don't think people really get a picture of how things were back then. Sonny and Maud were working class, things for the working class back then was 100 times worse than it is now. I'm not saying it was right or fair but where could they go to?

I agree with the other poster, Ben Whishaw portrays sympathetic characters they could have got a tougher looking actor and made the whole thing completely one sided but I loved it wasn't a black and white picture. Men were beaten in the streets when their wives were participating with the Suffragettes.

That Sonny Watts might not be the father of George Watts? Just sayin'...

Did you know that the laws at this time made the husbands responsible for their wives and children and their choices? Men had to pay for wives who were sleeping in another house. If men were dominating, it's partly because the government was forcing it on them. They either control the overgrown child or the overgrown child can stab him in the back. You can't hate on the leader of one household when looking back on this period. He has reasons that we can't fully understand today.

It was 1912. Husbands controlled their wives legally and otherwise. Women were virtual slaves to their husbands. Prior to marriage it was their father, brother or uncle if there was no father. It's hard to imagine a world where women were treated that way, but it was over 100 years ago.

Actors are useless without the power of a good writer's imagination

I'm outraged, that many feminists and females, allowed their husbands and sons and brothers and boyfriends, to get maimed and killed for the government in this era and thought those that wouldn't fight, were sissy or daffy and not "real" men. I am outraged, that many feminists and females, are still so darn needy for what men provide for them and yet attempt to undermine and emasculate them, as though they don't think they are as "superior" and "special" as them.


Don't give me any of that "it was how things were done back then" bull$hit, it was crap then and it certainly is NOW.
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Yes, it was bull$h!t, how men were oppressed by the ruling classes and expected to act in certain ways, in order to provide for their WOMEN and families, or risk being ostracized from society themselves. Of course, it is only poor precious and special females that were put up-on and their needs were more important, even though many men didn't get to vote themselves, unless they became pawns in an appalling game and dark time in history. Of course again, it only affected women more, because they were so much weaker and dependent.

It was horrific but he couldn't look after the kid. Legally she couldn't have him. And it seems neither could provide for him. So they were thinking of him. It's really awful though. I hate adoption even in the best of circumstances - usually it's unfair and messed up.