Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Alison Lanier | Film | April 4, 2025
Of March’s deluge of true crime, one stuck out among the family vloggers and serial killers. At a tight hour-and-a-half runtime, Nick Green’s documentary Con Mum probably doesn’t count as binge-watching, but it feels binge-worthy. The movie follows Graham Hornigold, a celebrated London pastry chef and happily married soon-to-be-father, who had recently stopped searching for the mother he never knew. He was building his own family with his wife, fellow chef Heather Kaniuk. That’s when a woman claiming to be his mother reaches out. And then all hell breaks loose.
Dionne, the suddenly returned mother, was compelling and convincing. She knew the sorts of details that convinced Graham that she had truly returned to find her long-lost son. She even had similar expressions and mannerisms. She seemed to be an open book.
But, if the title didn’t give it away, this is the story of a con.
Spoilers ahead!
Dionne, like many scammers we’ve seen on the small screen recently, claimed to have terminal cancer and to need continual support, both emotional and financial — despite the fact that she also claimed to have a vast fortune she was working to leave in its entirety to Graham.
If it sounds transparent on the surface, it isn’t. The way Dionne apparently spent huge quantities of money, the respect she received at top-tier hotels and restaurants, the meetings with high-powered bankers … It feels extreme, but also very real. Unresolved childhood trauma and a longing for a mother figure didn’t make the con any less compelling.
The story is a slow-burn about trust and love, and where those things fall away from each other, as well as a level of ruthless greed that is stunning in its destruction and remorselessness.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds later, with Graham’s happy marriage dissolving and friends desperately trying to pull him back to the surface of this delusion, Graham sees through it all … except for the part that wasn’t a con. Because the most tragic part of this whole story is that, after all that, Dionne was lying about a lot of things. But she wasn’t lying about being Graham’s mother.
The intersection of COVID and Dionne’s various long-running cons across numerous countries set her up in a corner where, rather than targeting hopeful strangers eager for an investor or an interpersonal bond with this grandmotherly figure, she targeted her own son.
Con Mum is a brutal, clear-eyed story about how even serious, careful, and emotionally intelligent people can be conned. It illustrates how the allure of answers, connection, and luxury coalesce to hoodwink not only Graham but a handful of other hopeful people who saw Dionne as a positive force coming into their lives.
Con Mum is streaming on Netflix.
