Robert Horton is a Scarecrow board member and a longtime film critic. This series of "critic's notes" is chance to highlight worthy films playing locally and connect them to the riches of Scarecrow's collection.
There must be some probability formula whereby the fact that some of writer-director David Lowery's biggest boosters (the New Yorker's Richard Brody, for instance) have turned thumbs down on Mother Mary should suggest that I, with my longstanding immunity to Lowery's films, would actually like it. But it did not work out that way.
The director of Ain't Them Bodies Saints, A Ghost Story, and The Green Knight (okay, I liked that last one) here offers us a tortured and talky piece about betrayal, forgiveness, and big arena shows. There is also the supernatural, which flicks through in the form of a large, red, cloth-like object, which might be many things, and which passes through bodies with heavy effect.
Mother Mary is the name of a pop diva, played by Anne Hathaway, who arrives in a state of dishevelment and desperation at the rustic design studio of her former lover Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), who is also famous. Also annoyed; Sam doesn't want to see MM, because of a past wound. But, in the movie's strange central demand, Mother Mary needs a new costume for a comeback concert, and begs Sam to create it. The first hour of the movie is a dialogue between the two women, a bafflingly inert conversation that feels all the more puzzling when the second half of the film ranges outside Sam's studio and fills in some much-needed backstory, providing us with glimpses of Mother Mary in concert and a séance that goes awry. There is body horror, although the movie's arty approach is so studied that "horror" might not be the right word.
At times I found myself wondering whether the highly stylized approach might be working against the material, and whether a more naturalistic take might have chafed in some interesting way with the pretentious subject matter. But then, I found myself wondering a lot of things during the movie, including how the theatrical performances tie in with the intimate story. I also wondered about an early intertitle that reads, "COVER YOUR EARS/THIS SONG IS CURS'D," which set up a nice little frisson that, as far as I could tell, was not fulfilled in any way.
Hathaway, a sincere, earthbound actress, is disastrously miscast as the Madonna-Gaga figure, which throws the film pretty seriously out of kilter. On the other hand, Michaela Coel is spectacular, so compelling to look at and listen to that you wonder why Sam bothers with the damp figure who shows up at the door. This movie may well turn into a cult film, and Coel will be a big reason why, although its aggressively non-traditional approach will make even cult status a hard go.
April 24, 2026
