PBS (Sun., Oct. 31, 9 p.m. ET)
Frustrated by a childproof cap on a medicine bottle, she says, "How they expect children to open that, I just can't imagine." Trying to sell her house, she disarms potential buyers by dwelling on its defects. Annie Longden is an unselfconsciously eccentric charmer, and 88-year-old Thora Hird plays her to perfection in this touching, warmly humorous film on Mobil Masterpiece Theatre. Pete Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father) is effectively low-key as her middle-aged son, writer Deric Longden, who adapted the teleplay from his memoir. Deric affectionately calls his mum "not daft, just different," and the mother-son bond only strengthens as a series of strokes gradually robs Annie of intelligible speech. In the end, theirs is a love beyond words.
Bottom Line: Expresses itself quite well
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