Once I walked into Mom Mary I didn’t actually know what to anticipate, and truthfully, I type of love when that occurs. Directed by David Lowery, this movie seemed mysterious and somewhat off-kilter within the trailers, and that vibe is precisely what the film delivers.
What I acquired was one thing far more intimate and theatrical than I anticipated. This isn’t some large sweeping drama. It’s a locked-in, conversation-heavy character examine that feels nearly like watching a stage play unfold in actual time.
On the heart of all of it is Anne Hathaway, taking part in a large pop icon making an attempt to claw her means again after a private {and professional} collapse. She reconnects together with her former buddy and designer, performed by Michaela Coel, and that reunion is mainly the film. T
he complete story lives and breathes of their interactions, their historical past, and the emotional wreckage they’ve each been carrying for years. It’s intense, uncomfortable at instances, and utterly depending on these two performances.
To be honest, Hathaway and Coel completely crush it. They’re magnetic collectively. Each look, each line, each little bit of stress feels loaded. Even once I wasn’t absolutely connecting with the story, I couldn’t look away from what they have been bringing to their characters.
They convey a stage of rawness that retains the movie alive, even when the narrative begins drifting into murky territory. Watching them work is truthfully extra compelling than a number of the materials they’re given to work with.
The movie itself is extraordinarily minimalistic, but in addition weirdly dense. It’s filled with metaphor, symbolism, and this barely surreal vitality that creeps in as issues progress.
There’s even a faint supernatural thread working by means of it, nevertheless it’s dealt with in such an summary means that you simply’re by no means fairly positive how literal any of it’s purported to be. It’s just like the film needs you to really feel one thing greater than perceive it, and that’s the place issues began to lose me.
I discovered myself consistently reaching for which means, making an attempt to piece collectively what Lowery was going for, and it simply saved slipping by means of my fingers. The deeper it acquired, the extra it began to really feel prefer it was stacking concepts on high of one another with out absolutely grounding any of them.
At a sure level, it turned exhausting making an attempt to maintain up with what all of it meant, and I began to really feel a bit disconnected from the expertise.
Visually although, I’ve acquired to offer it credit score. There’s a placing, nearly gothic magnificence to how the whole lot is framed and offered. The way in which it captures the fractured relationship between these two girls by means of its imagery is genuinely spectacular. You’ll be able to really feel the historical past, the ache, and the bizarre gravitational pull they nonetheless have on one another. That half actually works.
At a sure level, the movie type of deflates as an alternative of constructing to one thing greater. It doesn’t crash, it simply form of… fades out. There’s even a second the place Mom Mary admits, “These metaphors are exhausting,” and that’s how I used to be feeling concerning the movie.
The film piles on concept after concept, layering symbolism so thick that it begins to work in opposition to itself. It’s irritating as a result of the core of it’s so robust. Hathaway and Coel are unbelievable to look at, and Lowery clearly has a imaginative and prescient he’s chasing, however the extra it tries to say, the much less it truly lands. As a substitute of these themes hitting tougher, they get buried underneath the burden of the whole lot stacked on high of them.
Then there’s the ending, which didn’t land for me. It simply type of fades out in a means that feels extra irritating than thought-provoking. I don’t thoughts ambiguous endings after they really feel earned, however right here it felt just like the film by no means absolutely clicked into place, so the payoff didn’t hit.
Possibly there’s a deeper interpretation that simply didn’t join with me, and I’m positive some folks will get extra out of it. I simply wasn’t one in every of them.
On the finish of the day, Mom Mary is a captivating however uneven expertise. I respect what Lowery was making an attempt to do, and I like the ambition behind it. It’s a movie that swings large, even when it doesn’t absolutely stick the touchdown.
The performances alone make it price trying out, however that is undoubtedly a kind of motion pictures you want to be in the best headspace for. It’s not going to work for everybody, and truthfully, I’m nonetheless determining how a lot it labored for me.
