Mother Mary just might be the best modern Gothic horror film since Black Swan.
I went to see it mostly on a whim: I adore Anne Hathaway, and I find A24 movies (despite some of the “film student” stigma) to be some of the most innovative movies being released currently. Mother Mary was, thankfully, no exception.
Everything about this film was absolutely enthralling. The editing was seamless and beautiful—what’s more, it was some of the most interesting editing I’ve seen in a very long time. It made the pacing feel perfect, even in a movie that was mostly conversation; everything from the way it was written to shot to cut pulled me in and held my attention throughout the entire film. The sound design, especially, was impeccable (easily Oscar-worthy, though a film like this is likely to get overlooked); the balance between silence, music, and haunting whispers was absolutely perfectly struck.
The characters were just as riveting. A balance is struck, too, between Mary’s past and present: in the clips that start the movie and Sam’s opening monologue about her, she is a force to be reckoned with, and yet when the audience meets her, she is a shaking shell of a person, aptly rain-soaked as she enters the massive English manor that houses Sam’s atelier. Anne Hathaway is radiant (and incredibly strong; I couldn’t believe the silent dance sequence that gradually grew in intensity until Mary was, in true Gothic horror fashion, thrashing with every bit of power left in her body) and magnetic as Mary in all of her stages, and especially in Sam’s imaginings of her.
But Michaela Coel. My god, Michaela Coel. She is intense in a way that won’t let you look away; her monologues never felt too long or too drawn out. It was a pleasure to watch her perform from beginning to end, to watch her stand strong in her hurt until Mary made things up to her, no matter how shaken Mary was, because, yes, we want to help the ones we love, but we should never compromise ourselves in the process. Sam’s description of cutting Mary out of herself to feel better is something many of us (or, at least, that I) could relate to, and I would be remiss not to mention the overt references to the Black women who work tirelessly as experts in their fields only to be overlooked. Sam has made something of herself, yes, but it was born out of hatred, as she tells Mary, not out of what should have been hers (and definitely would have been hers, had she been a white man).
As I said at the beginning, this is an incredibly successful Gothic horror film set in the modern era of fame. Queerness and Gothicism go hand in hand (otherwise, this blog wouldn’t exist at all). Mother Mary is a ghost story the same way the Mike Flanagan show The Haunting of Bly Manor is; yes, there is a ghost, but as it embodies the main characters, that ghost transforms into so much more. Where Bly Manor was an allegory for the AIDS crisis which stole so many of our elders from us, Mother Mary is about the terror of coming out of the closet when it feels like your whole world will crash down around you no matter what decision you make. On the one hand is the fear that it will change everything; on the other is a nebulous, bursting thing inside you threatening to end you if you don’t let it escape, no matter how desperate you are to keep it inside.
But while the metaphor never once came off as heavy handed, even as the two women sat in a chalk circle while Sam yelled, “Come out! Out!”, the ghost itself occasionally did, though it was absolutely beautifully designed. While its terrifying sequences as it appeared to Mary were beautifully shot, complete with full-screen fades to red, and the final emergence and settling of the spirit brought tears to my eyes, the ghost’s initial appearance as a fleshy blob on Sam’s bedroom floor (and perhaps also the music choice, though I can’t quite put my finger on whether or not that’s true) left something to be desired. It was one of two times I felt ejected back into reality by the film, an issue soon remedied by the following conversation between Sam and Mary; the other was during Hunter Schaefer’s monologue describing Mary’s actions (or predicted actions? It was very unclear) at her concert. I had assumed the red dress would be Mary’s to wear at the concert, but then again, there was something much more fitting in Sam’s keeping the love that was returned for herself.
That being said, I really can’t shake my head at the concept of lesbianism being turned into a beautiful red dress, especially since, once the credits rolled, I was shocked to find the film was written and directed by a white man (in the absolute best way possible). The love story between Sam and Mary didn’t feel performative or skewed for the male gaze. It was so beautifully portrayed I was sure its author must have had the experience themselves, but it was a pleasant surprise to find that was not the case.
Overall, the biggest complaint I have about the film is that Jack Antonoff didn’t let Anne Hathaway belt in any of the songs he, Charli XCX, and FKA twigs wrote for the film (and, yes, I will make Jack Antonoff take full credit for this simply because it’s my blog and I can). But if that’s the worst I have to say, then that’s not bad at all.
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