THE STORY – Long-buried wounds rise to the surface when iconic pop star Mother Mary reunites with her estranged best friend and former costume designer Sam Anselm on the eve of her comeback performance.
THE CAST – Anne Hathaway, Michaela Coel, Hunter Schafer, Atheena Frizzell, Kaia Gerber, Jessica Brown Findlay, Alba Baptista, Isaura Barbé-Brown, Sian Clifford & FKA Twigs
THE TEAM – David Lowery (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 112 Minutes
As music pulses and lights flash, a figure emerges from the depths of the stage. Swathed in luxurious, form-fitting couture, with a halo atop her head that would make Renaissance painters jealous, she carries herself like royalty. This is the global pop music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway), and as soon as she steps offstage, it’s clear that something is wrong. The fierce precision and command she displayed onstage melt away, revealing a scared, uncertain girl caught in a current that has pulled her far from solid ground. As her mental state frays, we hear the voice of another woman, calling her a carcinogen that she can feel in the air. This is famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), who is clearly distracted as she works on the final stages of her latest collection. Sam used to design all of Mother Mary’s clothes back in the day, but they haven’t spoken since a falling out years ago. Now, Sam feels the intense bond they shared as creatives reactivating, and she’s not sure she likes it. When Mother Mary shows up at Sam’s country estate headquarters in the middle of a thunderstorm, it’s clear that the clash between these two won’t be just personal, but spiritual.
David Lowery’s hypnotic “Mother Mary” opens with a sequence that will fill every pop music fan with anticipation. The swirling beats of the music, the moody lighting, and the florid dialogue create an intoxicating atmosphere that sets up a diva-off for the ages. If all he had was Hathaway’s deteriorating pop star and Coel’s bitter designer, “Mother Mary” would still likely have been entertaining; Coel and Hathaway are two of the most charismatic, fascinating screen performers alive, and they make a five-course meal out of the screenplay’s arch dialogue. But Lowery goes further, layering in multiple themes of identity, artistic collaboration, and celebrity worship, all whipped into a storm of gothic proportions. “Mother Mary” is one hell of a gothic chamber piece, from the dark and stormy weather to the gestures towards the supernatural that don’t quite turn into full-on horror. Make no mistake, both Mother Mary and Sam are haunted, and the supernatural gets invoked in a significant way, but even calling this a thriller would be generous. If “Mother Mary” has a genre, gothic fits best; with the deliciously dark aura the film exudes, it perfectly complements the religious overtones and purple prose of Lowery’s screenplay, making this as close to a modern-day gothic as we’re likely to get.
Mother Mary has come to Sam out of desperation. She needs a dress that “feels like me,” she says, and Sam is the only person she can think of who can do that. Sam is willing to oblige, both because she’s been in her own creative slump recently and because of the power it gives her over Mother Mary. How she will use that power, she isn’t sure, but having it, after all she’s been through, is enough for Sam. The psychological warfare in which the two women engage, which eventually takes on a sexual element, is impossible to look away from, equal parts bitchy fabulosity and stoic introspection. Despite their sniping at each other, these two women share a bond that transcends the physical plane. That connection, as palpable to each other as it is to the audience, drives the narrative forward rather than their individual wants and needs, making for a rich viewing experience that demands rewatches.
On top of the complex, layered narrative, “Mother Mary” is also just fun to watch. Lowery’s over-the-top dialogue is especially delicious in the hands of Coel and Hathaway, who both know from withering put-downs. Mother Mary’s songs, glittering synth-pop anthems written by pop geniuses Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, have a trance-like pull to them, and Hathaway performs them with the charismatic ease of a born pop star. The film is even structured like a mystery, taking its time to explain the history between its two leads and even longer to reveal the source of Mother Mary’s spiritual discomfort. As things get stranger, Lowery adds more surrealistic elements to the mix, giving the film an intoxicating air that draws you in and never lets you go.
At the center of the storm, Coel and Hathaway’s bewitching performances elevate the already strong material to another level. Each of them can command the screen with just their eyes, and Lowery’s tight framing of their faces emphasizes their emotive qualities. Coel creates a perfect blend of bitterness and vulnerability as Sam finds herself more emotionally attached to Mother Mary than she wanted or expected. Sam became a collaborator of Mother Mary’s because her singing sparked something inside Sam’s soul, and Coel plays her anger at Mother Mary’s betrayal as a hurt that will never fully heal, but whose remaining fire surprises her. The beguiling ambiguity at the heart of the character, namely, what she wants from Mother Mary and whether her dress will be flattering or not, becomes even more so given Coel’s Sphinx-like features, as well as her ability to play multiple emotions at once. It’s a completely transfixing performance, as effective when she’s silently staring daggers at Mother Mary as when she’s sassily spitting out the screenplay’s most venomous dialogue.
For her part, Hathaway delves deep, delivering one of her best performances. Taking the frayed nerves of her performance in “Rachel Getting Married” and grafting them onto a new pop diva persona, Hathaway is magnetic, completely believable as both the powerful stage presence and the meek, desperate girl begging her (former) friend for help. She’s so effortlessly convincing as a pop star that all the millennial pop girlies should thank their lucky stars she never started a music career; she slyly turns Mother Mary (whose real name we never learn) into both a tribute to and parody of world-famous pop stars, going all-out with the arms-and-hair choreography and adopting a fake British accent only for certain words. Her supple voice melts into the songs, displaying a knack for phrasing and color that mark only the best pop stars. After so many years in her career, she’s finally tapped out from having to play the persona of Mother Mary without feeling connected to it. At the end of her rope, she says she goes to Sam because she had nowhere else to go, but Sam (and the audience) can see the truth: She’s lost her way and needs the help of the person who not only knows her best, but who helped her create Mother Mary, something she resents Sam for putting on her. Hathaway plays this duality, both loving and hating Sam, needing her help but afraid of what it means, with piercing insight into the popstar’s plight.
Lowery, clearly fascinated by the plight of the modern pop star, has made “Mother Mary” with both the fervor of a fan and the insight of a fellow artist. The questions the film asks about the identity of pop stars as well as the ownership of their music, their image, and their very souls don’t all have answers, and Lowery doesn’t provide them. He does, however, provide plenty of food for thought as he asks these questions, interrogating the relationship between artists and their audience and what each owes the other. If the surrealism of the film’s last act feels both too much and not enough, at least Lowery dares to take the story in that direction, exploring the spiritual connection between artistic collaborators in an original way. In all the best ways, “Mother Mary” is like a great pop song: Its gleaming surfaces conceal a deeper, darker meaning only discernible through close attention, but that darkness is the magic that keeps you coming back to experience it again and again.
