‘Mother Mary’: An Aesthetically Stunning, But Empty Ghost Story

If nothing else, David Lowery’s Mother Mary is solid proof that a lot of great ideas mean much less than the sum of their parts without the glue to hold them together. Though an aesthetically gorgeous affair with a cast of extremely talented actors, the actual meat of the film is ironically quite threadbare and leaves the whole thing feeling like a house without a roof – nearly there and technically functional, but missing something very important.

Anne Hathaway stars as the titular Mother Mary, a gothic popstar who clearly takes clear cues from the real-world career of Lady Gaga. After a strange incident during her last live performance, Mary begs for help from her old stylist Sam (Michaela Coel) to craft a dress that authentically represents her for a comeback performance.

Yet Sam is not having it, considering the two seem to have a rather terse relationship where they were once “friends”. As they do just about everything except actually make the dress Mary wants, the two realise their connection may be much more spiritual than the other realised.

Mother Mary is best when setting up the pieces

Despite being about a pop superstar who can sell out arenas across the world, Mother Mary is surprisingly small in its scope. It is mostly about the relationship between Mary and Sam, which is at its strongest from a writing perspective before the script really starts delving into it.

Lowery’s script is overly wordy, rather repetitive and about as queer-coded as you can get, but I believe these elements could be made functional if Lowery made the pair’s relationship more explicit, but he holds his cards too close to the chest in a way that feels frustrating, not rewarding.

Indeed, the film is at its best when setting up all its pieces instead of actually playing with them. Actors of Coel and Hathaway’s calibre are able to infuse meaning into a script that has real charm before it becomes apparent how cyclical and obtuse it is, and the two turn in great performances with (or in spite of) the material.

Mother Mary is mostly a two-hander with very little in the way of substantial side characters, and even then the manner in which it explores the relationship of its two main characters always feels like it’s missing something. Especially once the film passes the halfway point, it reveals itself to have a far more superstitious leaning than its preceding hour would initially imply.

Spectacularly beautiful, but for what?

Though host to some truly spectacular imagery, it’s difficult not to wonder what Mother Mary is actually trying to say. Its core concept of viewing the mark someone leaves on you as a sort of “haunting” is fascinating, but it also fails to fully capitalise on what this means before moving into unpredictable territory.

Even in its aesthetic and sonic delivery, Mother Mary feels quite slapdash. It’s clear Lowery has a strong understanding of pop iconography and there’s some stellar costume work in this film, but it feels extremely disconnected from the kind of music that Mary is shown to make in the movie. Though it’s nice that Charli xcx and FKA twigs (the latter also being in the movie) contributed their writing chops to the soundtrack, all the music lacks the sort of energy that makes me actually believe in Mary’s superstardom.

The film seems a bit desperate to court a queer audience, which makes Lowery’s decision to avoid an explicitly queer relationship and the shockingly inert music feel that much more baffling. You can’t take cues from Gaga’s aesthetic without understanding what makes the marriage of her music and aesthetic so special, even if Hathaway sings these songs with real commitment

So in spite of a genuinely impressive range of ideas, Mother Mary’s commitment to obfuscating them creates a film that frustrates more than it intrigues. The ghost of a good film was here at some point, but there’s nothing supernatural about the end product – the only thing haunting Mother Mary is wasted potential.

★★½

Mother Mary is in cinemas now.