David Lowery’s new film “Mother Mary” is an oddly curious psychological chamber drama between two different women. As they push and pull each other over some old issues between them within a small, isolated background, the movie occasionally serves us a series of stylish moments to enjoy, and then we are not so surprised when it later enters a realm of supernatural fantasy with more style and mood to be savored.
At the beginning, we see Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway), a very famous American pop star musician, preparing for her upcoming comeback concert. While trying on a glamorous piece of costume to be used for that comeback concert, she somehow does not feel that right about it, and she eventually decides to visit her former costume designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), who is currently preparing for her imminent fashion show in her residence located in some countryside area in UK.
As reflected by the opening narration by Sam, Mother Mary hurt Sam’s feelings a lot around the time of their breakup, and Sam does not welcome Mother Mary’s sudden visit at all, but she eventually lets Mother Mary into a little personal studio of hers. As Mother Mary struggles to articulate on what can be a perfect piece of costume for her upcoming comeback concert, Sam often throws some hard questions on the problematic past between them, and the mood naturally becomes more tense as they gradually face those old issues between them.
Were they more than two close collaborators? Were they actually lovers? The movie never specifies the nature of the past relationship between its two main characters, but it is still interesting to see how they dance around their old issues without spelling them out to us. While clearly feeling guilty about whatever happened between them, Mother Mary remains reluctant to recognize that and then sincerely apologize to Sam. While apparently feeling resentful about whatever Mother Mary did to her, Sam occasionally throws some hard questions to Mother Mary, but she does not open herself that much just like Mother Mary.
As these two ladies continue to struggle with each other, their ongoing chamber drama is juxtaposed with a series of occasional flashback scenes showing Mother Mary’s concerts including the one which caused a lot of hoopla for a certain reason to be revealed later in the story. We see how she dominates over the stage as a sort of cross between Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, and cinematographers Andrew Droz Palermo and Rina Yang did a splendid job of making these concert scenes look quite striking on the screen.
However, behind all the glamor and style surrounding her, something has been bothering Mother Mary not long after her breakup with Sam, and that becomes all the more evident from a flashback scene showing her participating in a little séance held by a mysterious young woman who turns out to be a big fan of hers. While this initially feels like a trivial fun time, the mood soon becomes quite serious as this young woman seems to be really possessed by something, and this consequently troubles Mother Mary’s mind a lot.
It turns out that what happened to her at that time is somehow connected with what occurred to Sam around the same time. There is a certain strange hallucination shared between them for no apparent reason, and it becomes quite clear to both of them that they must deal with whatever is represented by this spooky hallucination of theirs.
After this narrative point, the movie strikes us with unnervingly surreal moments between its two main characters, who eventually decide to do a sort of exorcism for the peace of mind for both of them. Considering their seriously troubled state of mind, you may not be that sure about what exactly is happening between them at that point, but the movie handles this part with enough conviction, so we come to accept some symbolic elements without much distraction.
The movie surely depends a lot on the presence and talent of its two main performers, who fill their respective archetype roles with enough personality to hold our attention to the end. Anne Hathway, who has been quite busy during this year as appearing in a number of notable films including “The Odyssey” (2026), is believable in her character’s inner conflict along the story, and she also deftly handles those concert scenes in the film as performing several original songs by Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX for herself (After all, she won an Oscar for singing with a lot of tears in “Les Misérables” (2012), didn’t she?). On the opposite, Michaela Coel, who has been more prominent thanks to BBC One / HBO TV series “I May Destroy You”, is ably complements Hathaway’s showier acting with her low-key performance, and her expressive face often speaks volumes during her several moments of quiet intensity in the film.
In conclusion, “Mother Mary” is often engaging for its style, mood, and performance, and that is more than enough to compensate for its rather thin storytelling in my humble opinion. Although its overall result is relatively impressive compared to Lowery’s previous films including “A Ghost Story” (2017) and “The Green Knight” (2021), the overall result is still an interesting genre experiment on the whole, so I recommend you to give it a chance especially if you look for something different.
