Ralph Fiennes on his mother, the novelist Jennifer Lash, and her best work "Blood Ties"

In this film, Ralph Fiennes goes on a journey with the help of other members of his family to uncover how his mother's emotionally scarred youth was to have a profound effect upon their own extraordinary upbringing.

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Oscar-winning actor Ralph Fiennes, acclaimed for his roles in Schindler's List and The English Patient, is one of six children. His mother, Jennifer Lash, who died in 1993, was a writer. Her last novel, Blood Ties, is a powerful, often harrowing account of the damage a careless and unstable mother can unwittingly wreak upon a child. Lash herself had an unhappy, distressed childhood, which included being certified insane, and she was determined that she would provide a nurturing environment for her own children. In the 1960s, she gave up a promising career as a novelist to devote herself to raising her large family of four sons, two daughters and a foster son. In Blood Ties, the figure of Violet Farr, the unbending, distant and unwilling matriarch, is drawn from Jennifer's own mother, while the pain and isolation of the love-starved child, Spencer, mirrors that of Mick, the withdrawn, troubled foster son she took on.

Directed by Samira Osman, 1997.

© Licensed by Digital Classics Distribution