Mother Mary Review
Ever since Taylor Swift completely redefined what it means to be a global superstar with her zeitgeist-penetrating Era’s tour, the line between fandom and religion has become even more blurred. Swift is one of a handful of pop-powerhouses alongside Madonna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande who have transcended from being beloved musicians to idolised cult-like figures.
What this level of adoration does to a person’s psyche is unfathomable to us, everyday peasants, who only worship at the altars of our beloved pop divas. But David Lowery’s new film Mother Mary explores the psychological toll this divine pedestal takes on renowned fictional popstar Mother Mary, played here by Anne Hathaway.
After a traumatic incident at one of her concerts a few years ago, Mary is about to embark on a comeback tour with her latest material. However, something deep inside Mary feels wrong. Her aesthetic for the tour isn’t gelling with her vision for the launch. An ineffable force is telling her to go back to her roots and consult the help of the costume designer and former friend Sam Anslem (Michaela Coel), who fashioned and cultivated her “Mother Mary” popstar image. Sam’s collection of Halo fasteners became Mary’s signature iconography and helped her career to reach its heavenly heights. A shoutout to the film’s costume designer, Bina Daigeler for constructing so many bedazzling and opulent garments, which wouldn’t look out of place at the Met Gala.
Mary and Sam have known each other for twenty-five years, but have been estranged for the past decade. Sam is harbouring feelings of resentment towards the singer for the lack of credit she received during Mary’s stratospheric rise to fame. But despite the obvious friction, Sam still feels spiritually tethered to the singer. She can literally sense her arrival before it even happens. Whether this bond is sisterly, magical, or something else is up to the audience to decipher.
This choice to leave the story surrounded in ambiguity is what will likely divide opinion on Mother Mary. Some will praise Lowery for delivering a film that leaves you with plenty to chew on after you leave the cinema. Whilst others will find it pretentious and be left frustrated by its unclear message. Lowrey no doubt takes the audience on an entrancing journey both sonically and visually, but the ideas he explores about celebrity, stan-culture and the intersection of fame and glorification are only ever excavated at a surface level. For a story that preaches a lot about clarity, it’s ironic that the metaphors it presents are elusively vague.
The payoff might not be completely satisfying, but the psychedelic trip Lowery takes us on is at least an interesting one, like a beguiling feverdream odyssey with an insatiably tantric soundtrack that features contributions from Charli XCX and FKA Twigs. What’s baffling is, when you break the film down into its individual components, performances, music, costumes and cinematography, there is a lot to praise. But collectively they don’t add up to a gratifying whole. If Lowery’s film were an album, it would feel more like a collection of sturdy, unique singles, but without a central thread. Bits and pieces of it are truly brilliant, but it’s missing a binding agent to make it fully cohesive.
What keeps Mother Mary engaging is the two strong performances of its co-leads Hathaway and Coel. There’s a tangible sense of yin and yang synchronicity between these two actors, and they really do complement one another. Michaela Coel is particularly enchanting as the mysterious costumer Sam, who commands the energy of any room just by stepping into it. Coel’s screen presence is pure, undiluted fierceness. It’s not a leap to believe that Sam herself is the source of the “Mother” part of Mary’s popstar moniker. She’s serving stern matriarch realness, whereas Hathaway is giving lost daughter seeking guidance.
Hathaway brings an internalised fragility to her portrayal of Mary. Her slumped posture in the first act illustrates how deflated she feels. But nowhere is her physicality more telling than in the film’s most magnetic sequence, where Mary performs for Sam the choreography for her newest track unaccompanied by music. It evokes the feeling of Lady Gaga’s music video for Disease, wherein you can see her body being overtaken by her dark passenger. Hathaway sells every moment of it, writhing and contorting her limbs as if she were possessed by a demon.
Together, Mary and Sam are a tantalising pair, but what lets them down is that Lowery’s screenplay only gives us mere breadcrumbs of their backstory. Yes, the golden rule in cinema is to show, don’t tell. But given that the entire film is about two people with a connection that’s louder than words, which is symbolically brought to life by an ethereal piece of red fabric. Having a few more details about their history could’ve helped to truly contextualise their rift and elevate the imagery Lowery is so fond of. Instead, he prefers to leave it up to the audience to decide. Admirable to some, cowardly to others.
Those familiar with Lowery’s strange sensibilities as a storyteller will probably be more receptive to Mother Mary, but casual viewers will likely find it obtuse and unrewarding. It is undeniably hypnotic to watch, but once you snap out of the trance, you might find yourself thinking, “Huh, is that all there is?”
★★★
In UK cinemas April 24th / Anne Hathaway, Michaela Coel, Hunter Schafer, Sian Clifford, FKA Twigs, Jessica Brown Findlay / Dir: David Lowery / A24 / 15
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