Released: 14th May
Seen: 9th September
When it comes to pop music, the genre largely belongs to women, and they manage to turn that light, fluffy, fun music into an absolute art form. From early icons like Madonna and Cher, to the 90s icons of Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera, to the millennial iterations of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, all the way up to the modern pop princesses like Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter, every generation gets a pop girlie or two that they can latch onto and call their own. They are often expected to give the world grand, elaborate performances to provide their bright bubblegum music a touch of heft; any deeper meaning or impact of their music often has to wait a few years for people to reevaluate it, and any mental anguish they may go through while being a pop icon is pushed down, hidden for people to find out about in tabloids years later. Witnessing a pop icon in trouble is almost a rite of passage, and Mother Mary gives us a pop icon going through the wringer and it really does work… until the ghosts show up.
Mother Mary begins with the titular pop star preparing a comeback tour after an incident at a concert. While trying to undergo a costume fitting, Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) becomes overwhelmed and runs off to the countryside and finds costumer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel) who was not only her former collaborator but also her former partner whom she had a rather messy break up with. Mother Mary begs to have a dress made and stunningly, Sam agrees. With three days until the concert, Sam and Mary work together creating the dress while talking about art and their relationship and opening up all matter of old wounds in an attempt to get some kind of artistic honestly flowing. At one point a spectral ghost is brought up, a ghost that both women have seen which appears to have some part in why Mary fell during her concert… and things kind of go downhill from there.
For much of Mother Mary, it is simply a two-person dialogue between Mother Mary and Sam, and it’s surprisingly effective. From the moment those two are in a room together you can feel the years of connection and the built up resentment just bubbling underneath the surface that turns every single moment of their conversation into a potential live wire that could cause either of them to erupt at a moment’s notice. The two actresses absolutely devour each and every moment that they get, knowing how to just express so much pent-up pain with a single look. It’s palpable, like you’re watching a duel between people who want to hurt each other just enough that they bleed but not so much that they die. It’s a fascinating power play that carries a large part of the film and it could’ve easily been the whole thing if it wasn’t for that fucking ghost.
The element of the supernatural that really takes up the latter half of Mother Mary is kind of where every potential problem with this film comes in, It’s a sharp genre shift that happens late enough in the film to throw the audience off and takes the film from intelligent and interesting to wildly pretentious to the point of boredom. This isn’t to say that the way the ghost is presented isn’t visually interesting, the sight of this large piece of red fabric escaping from an open wound that becomes the spirit is a gorgeous image, indeed the latter half of the film has some of the most beautiful imagery I’ve seen in a film this year but it feels like the director wants you to know they understand symbolism and that their film is actually very deep, so much deeper than it would be if it was just a couple of fascinating lesbians dealing with their relationship issues. The arrival of the ghost is when the film leaps from fascinating to pretentious and boy, it’s a hard leap to take the audience with.
What’s sad is that Mother Mary clearly gets the idea of what makes this interesting, Mother Mary is very clearly a Lady Gaga stand-in (if you look at this and see any pop icon, it’s gonna be her) and Anne Hathaway delivers an absolute barn burner of a performance that shows the glorious pop performer and the raw human underneath. It’s one of those performances where you see Anne just tearing herself open and letting it all hang out just to try and sell the emotion of it. Her counter in Michaela is also truly fantastic, they sell this put-upon worker who is the best at what she does but is tired of not getting to share that spotlight. There’s a fascinating ebb and flow between them, they push each other and make each scene as emotional as you could hope – right up until we hit that moment where everything goes silent and we have to indulge in some cinematic wankery that just feels so forced it drags the whole film down.
Mother Mary has some fascinating ideas presented by a pair of genuinely brilliant performers who have created some truly deep and intricate characters. It clearly understands a lot about pop stars and the raw human elements around a broken relationship trying to function for the sake of art is intriguing to watch and everything is supported by a killer soundtrack that feels like something that would be performed by an actual mainstream pop star. It could’ve been a fascinating look into a creative collaboration if it didn’t trip at the third act and wind up with its head right up its own ass.
Movie Meister Reviews 