Some Mother's Son

Helen Mirren is quietly heroic as a mother whose IRA terrorist son is wasting away on a prison hunger strike. The politically loaded question: Does she honor his convictions and let him die for his beliefs or exert her parental right to intercede and end his fast? Cowritten by Jim Sheridan and director Terry George (who also collaborated on In the Name of the Father), the somber film Some Mother's Son got lost in last December's rush of more festive fare. Fortunately, on tape its human-scale drama loses none of its power to move us. Alone among recent video releases depicting Northern Ireland's Troubles (The Devil's Own, Nothing Personal), this one keeps the conflict wrenchingly real. A-