David Lowery is really underrated when it comes to the great visual filmmakers of the modern era. Between The Green Knight and his new film Mother Mary he has brought forth some of the most striking, exquisite images I’ve ever seen at the movies (and hell, there are even a few stupendous ones in A Ghost Story). I would honestly not be surprised if the inspiration for Mother Mary originated with the conception of its stills and pictures, and that the story itself was crafted around them. And I would not be bothered by that fact.
Mother Mary is a very enigmatic film, with a hallowed reverence for its subject matter -pop stardom and aesthetics- that may in other hands feel inappropriate. And it makes a few turns that are in the moment discombobulating, and that take some time to reconcile. Yet the movie’s reality is fairly easily fluid, its shifts into psychological, spiritual corners not so alien or unwelcome as they may look on paper. A hypnotizing tone makes allowances for its melding of the real and symbolic, as does its intensity of emotion. It is a very strange film about a deep friendship (perhaps more), but hypnotic and alluring in exactly the right way. Irresistibly compelling.
Anne Hathaway plays the titular figure, a pop icon on a level like Beyoncé, making a comeback after an absence due to a back injury. Her costumes are an incredibly important part of her image, and she is especially identified for her signature halo head-piece -but her latest outfit doesn’t feel right; and in desperation, three days before her concert, she calls on her estranged former friend and dressmaker Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), to make something for her. Sam begrudgingly accepts, and in her rural English barn of a workshop, the two confront each other over their past falling out and the situation Mary is in now, as well as eventually reckoning with a vivid, nebulous ghost that connects them.
It is a wild ride of a narrative, that keeps you uncertain about what’s really going on and where it is headed, but its grip is quite intense. Lowery does really well at capturing the aesthetics of pop stardom, transforming Hathaway into the image of the modern music goddess, with elaborate outfits and production stylings for her concerts that takes on the kind of mythic scale that one can’t deny is a big part of the aura of the biggest superstars -notably Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift. And that status is here taken on its own terms, seriously -with Lowery imbuing the script with a classical atmosphere and weight more typically befitting a narrative of gods or kings -this very name and title evokes religious connotations and Mary’s status as a kind of matriarch. There are certain grounding effects here and there in a reference or two, but the general loftiness is adhered to strictly through every turn the movie makes. Yet there is no cynicism there, these heights are validated by how enmeshed they are to the film’s emotional core -the turbulent relationship between Mary and Sam.
As they work together on the new dress, a somewhat haughty Sam indulging in the power over her former friend while Mary, burdened and depressed, prostrates herself in sorrow and apology, the two actresses put on an entrancing dance. Whatever the details of their history may be, vaguely kept free of specifics up to the moment of apparent betrayal, there is a palpable tension between them as romantic as it is bitter. Intonations of delivery, their body language towards each other is suggestive of something deeper than friendship -Hathaway and Coel certainly play that erotic closeness very intentionally. But then it is enough that their bond was powerful and that -for as much as Sam in particular emphasizes an apparent healthiness arrived at in Mary’s absence (she casually has abstained from listening to any of Mary’s music in years), the tethers of that relationship still mean a lot and are fundamentally unresolved.
Coel commands the screen through the depth of this dynamic with an alluring elegance and forthright certainty, asserting her power naturally while hinting towards both the sharpness of her creative spark and her suppressed vulnerabilities. It is a thrilling performance to read, especially in light of the movie’s metaphorical and surreal corners -Coel feels in her element through especially the expressionistic moments and the stage-like quality of the blocking in the barn. And Hathaway gives a textured performance like I haven’t seen from her in a while -the heaviness of Mary’s fame and her wounds, and what we learn is an anomalous force within her, immediately tangible and humanizing in spite of her larger than life persona. There is a rawness to her emotional complexity, yet that strength of conviction shines through her pitiable and desperate circumstances. She plays the presence of the spirit palpably.
It is a spirit, a literal ghost inhabiting her. Breathtakingly rendered as an ethereal red cloth, its origins connect Mary with Sam and epitomizes their broken comradery. Sam’s experience with the entity is brief and ultimately liberating, but for Mary it is a horror, a violation. A symbol of the resentment between them -bitter, envious and sorrowful- that speaks to each character: Sam could release it but it utterly suffocates Mary. To properly address and vanquish it they need to recognize what it really is, and they need to be together. It is their mutual demon after all, Sam gave away her emotions in it and they are now eating away at Mary -both need it to be exorcised. The process of this is fascinating, blending a little cliché with wholly new ideas, and there is once more an unavoidable sexual connotation in how it is resolved and both women made free of the spirit’s burden. But the spirit and all it symbolizes does not wholly need to be the miserable, harrowing force it is -what made it was still a mesh of powerful and important feelings that cannot be brushed away. Yet they can be transformed, beautifully. It is curious that its form is red.
Of course, past any symbolism this is just a really strong and vibrant choice visually -the red motif present through many of the movie's most striking, abstract moments. Appropriately for a movie that deals with spirits, the visual language Lowery employs is haunting and mesmerizing. Everything regarding the ghost is dreamlike and insular -the sets very stark, if not ensconced in minimalist darkness; the lighting is moody, the movement and editing graceful. Lowery is motivated by an instinct towards rich composition, and to achieve it he isn't afraid of stretching the film's reality, of inserting flashbacks within the scenes they are told against, both Mary and Sam observers to their pasts -a barn door opening out onto a concert, a corner of the space revealing itself to be the apartment in which a seance took place. It makes creative use of the film's production standards -almost the entirety of the story is told within that barn yet Lowery keeps finding new interesting ways of shooting it and embedding other scenes within it. These choices define the movie's psychological character while also often standing alone as exquisite pieces in their own right.
Within the story, Mary’s actual artistry is almost a secondary concern to her mere celebrity as its own optimal cultural role -her style and the feelings she generates are more important. Though of course the music isn’t inconsequential. In fact, everything is critically accentuated by the music and its impeccable ambience -provided in both the score by Lowery's regular collaborator Daniel Hart, and the songs for Mary by Charli XCX, Jack Antonoff, and FKA Twigs -who also has a small role as an occultist fan of Mother Mary. Each of the songs feels genuine to the kind of artist Mother Mary is meant to be, and Hathaway -who hasn't sung in a movie in quite some time- performs them with justice. They are mysterious pieces, married to the movie's tone, yet still clearly 'pop' in their style, pace and rhythm -most of them fairly enjoyable to listen to, with "Burial" and "Holy Spirit 2" as the best standouts.
Mother Mary is a dense and artistically ambitious movie that will be alienating to audiences uninterested in its leaps of style and logic. Some of it even perplexed and threw me off, and I wasn't sure if it could regain its footing. By my estimation it did, but it is an exquisite piece to take in regardless. A gorgeous unusual movie, elaborate in its layers though rich in its fundamental aims. It feels like a long-form experimental music video or visual album -the core emotionality resonating through the elegant imagery and dreamlike momentum. As its subject and title suggests, it is a spiritual experience, deeper than I would ever expect a movie about pop stardom to be.
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