A deeply personal documentary chronicling a mother and son’s relationship, released in time for Mother’s Day, Duty Free depicts British expat Rebecca as she’s fired from her housekeeping job aged 75, putting her home at risk. This was a job she’d toiled in for decades, raising her sons in an apartment above her workplace: now, she finds herself thrown onto the labour slagheap, apparently unnecessary.
Left with nowhere to go and a schizophrenic son, Gabriel, to care for, her other son, journalist Sian-Pierre, makes a film following Rebecca’s plight over three and a half years. She makes a bucket list of things she never did when she was tirelessly working, and her son creates a Kickstarter campaign to fund them: joining Instagram, milking a cow, hip-hop classes, skydives.
Rebecca also takes a trip back through her own turbulent history. Her first marriage in Detroit, the excitement of arriving in 1970s USA filled with hope and opportunity. The daughter she gave up when younger, who she reconnects with later in London, meeting her grandchildren in the process. The health problems that led to drastic life decisions; having two mixed race boys by a man who, to her shock, also had another family.
Duty Free is a journey full of twists and turns, made with real love, that also deals with ageism in the workplace and the threat of poverty in retirement. What the crowdfunded documentary leaves us with, though, are messages of courage and resilience in adversity and the right to dream. A love letter between Sian-Pierre and his vibrant mother that has resonance for all mothers and sons.
Dir: Sian-Pierre Regis (12A, 70 mins)
Out Fri 25 Mar; streaming on Mother’s Day, Sun 27 Mar
words KEIRON SELF
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