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Now Playing: ‘Mother Mary’ mixes fashion, music, and fantasy into one strange brew
By: Gordon Briggs
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We’ve all blocked, unfriended, and ghosted someone over the years.
Maybe we did it to a person we were once close to.
However, sometimes the people we’ve cast out of our lives can still haunt us. Those people we’ve lost become ghosts of a different kind.
In exploring the relationship between past and present, between a public celebrity and a private individual, Mother Mary crafts a sometimes frustrating but ultimately fascinating film that blends pop music and costume design with the beats of a strange psychodrama and a supernatural horror thriller. In short, this film is a weird one that stuck with me long after I saw it.
No synopsis can do the story justice. On the surface, the film centers on a turbulent reunion between an iconic pop star (Anne Hathaway) and her estranged fashion designer (Michaela Coel), who reunite to create the look for her comeback performance. However, there is unfinished business between these two women, and as their hostility and grievances simmer, the story will gradually wander into supernatural territory.
At first, I wasn’t thrilled with the film’s pace. The pace of its first half can be slow, and its direction vague. Plus, because the story unfolds in one place, that choice may frustrate some viewers. However, Mother Mary is first and foremost a chamber piece set in the fashion designer’s rural English barn that also serves as her studio.
It’s there that the two characters discuss their troubled past. The source of the rift between them is never explicitly stated (even their conversation is haunted by something). Then, at about the 45-minute mark, the story takes a supernatural turn. The film begins to invoke ghosts and witchcraft. Suddenly, the creation of a garment and the conjuring of spirits begin to look alike.
I dare not spoil too much of the film’s second act, except to say that when the supernatural elements emerged, I didn’t know where the film was going next, and that is a feeling I always enjoy.
As for visuals, this film makes fascinating use of cinematic space. The movie begins in one setting but opens up from there. Specifically, the claustrophobic walls of the barn in the first half literally become doorways into the character’s flashbacks.
Like an audience to their own memories, the movie expands inwards and uses the recurring image of a haunted red fabric to explore trauma and the ghosts that haunt our character’s thoughts. As the story unfolds, the claustrophobic interiors of the first half are contrasted with massive arena-concert scenes featuring large-scale productions and high-energy lighting.
Director David Lowery is a filmmaker long concerned with characters who grapple with the weight of their past or the slow, inexorable passage of time, as seen in movies like A Ghost Story, The Old Man & the Gun, and my personal favorite, The Green Knight. Here, I think the film uses pop music and fashion to examine how ‘celebrity’ can be a ghost of a different kind, and how artistic creation can ultimately exorcise the spirits that haunt us.
Like Lowery’s other films, this is a strange, sometimes difficult work that may alienate or confuse many viewers. But if you tune into its unique frequency, you may find the journey to be worthwhile.
★★★1/2