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.
Anne Hathaway stars as the title character in this Taylor Swift-Esque vehicle that might hint at a possible future for her once the hype surrounding the whirlwind romance with Travis Kelsey fades into the background of daily life. Mary’s own personal journey intimates something more traumatic in her past, though details are sketchy, at best.
Michaela Coel as Sam Anselm holds her own against the formidable acting talents of Hathaway. The two women reunite after a falling out years earlier, before Mary’s rise to superstardom. Sam is – or at least was – a highly respected costume designer who suffered her own fall from grace and harbors a dark resentment toward Mary as a result. This makes the collaboration between Mary and Sam more than a little testy, but also creatively beneficial.
With the start of a well-publicized comeback tour approaching fast, Mary needs a fresh costume commensurate with the gravity of the event. Now secluded in an expansive rural English setting, Sam receives an unexpected visit from a cowed Mary with entreaties to put aside past transgressions. Sam agrees, but a strong undercurrent of bitterness remains – a residual impact of her banishment from the celebrity spotlight that she once reveled in.
As much as anything, the movie offers up a character study of two resilient women, happy to be catty, chatty, and downright spiteful. They spar and parry with an expertise honed from long practice, largely to good effect. It’s a thinking person’s foray into the minds of ambitious women seeking fulfillment, resolution, and – above all – vindication.
Written and directed by David Lowery, “Mother Mary” is a stunning, moody production with heavy influences from Swift’s “Reputation Tour” in 2018 – her first circuit performed exclusively in stadium venues. Hathaway also draws on the more recent “Eras Tour,” which she attended and clearly used as a model for her performance. In addition, Lowery reportedly gleaned inspiration from 1992’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” directed by Francis Ford Coppola, with its striking visual effects plainly rubbing off. The film is replete with psychological and transcendent imagery that evokes rather than articulates explicitly. In that regard, it’s more about the experience than the storyline, giving audiences wide latitude to make of things what they will.
In Theaters Friday, April 24th
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