The film frames these events as the foundation for Jane’s future career as a renowned author. Through flash-forwards, we see her later relationship with Donald (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) and her eventual status as a literary icon (played as an elderly woman by Glenda Jackson). Key Cast & Production

On a warm spring day in 1924, housemaid Jane Fairchild (Odessa Young) is given the afternoon off for Mothering Sunday. While her employers, the Nivens, attend a lunch to celebrate the engagement of their neighbor's son, Paul Sheringham (Josh O'Connor), Jane spends her time in a secret, final tryst with Paul at his family estate. The day marks a turning point:

After their afternoon together, Paul dies in a car accident, an event that leaves the community—already hollowed out by losses in the Great War—further devastated.

( Mothering Sunday ) is a 2021 British period romantic drama directed by Eva Husson and based on the novella by Graham Swift .

Paul and Jane have carried on a secret relationship for years, but he is duty-bound to marry a woman of his own social standing.

Set in the aftermath of World War I, the film explores themes of grief, social class, and the birth of an artist through a non-linear narrative that shifts between the 1920s, the 1940s, and the distant future.