I have a confession to make: despite its near-universal acclaim, I do not like David Lowery’s The Green Knight. Yes, it is visually sumptuous, and Dev Patel was perfectly cast, but I will put my smarmy Oxford glasses on here when I say that the changes made to the story disappointed me thoroughly. On the other hand, I loved his previous film A Ghost Story, which was haunting, beautiful and deeply meaningful. Mother Mary seems to combine the best parts of both in my eyes: the orgasmic visuals of The Green Knight with A Ghost Story’s haunting supernatural atmosphere. Plus, it stars Anne Hathaway as a Gaga-esque popstar, so it would be hard to make me not like it. It will not be for everyone – it’s dialogue-heavy, sparse, pretentious and surreal. But if you like that, along with elaborate religious imagery and stunning fashion, then this film is unmissable.
Hathaway plays Mother Mary, a singer who is making a comeback after a previous accident took her out of action. We first meet her speeding through a thunderstorm to an English estate owned by Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer whom she spurned and has grown spiteful ever since. Mary insists that the dress she has prepared for her final show is not right, not her – which feels like an excuse more than anything – and begs Sam to design her a new one in a matter of days. At first deeply reluctant, Sam begins to open up and work through Mary’s demons, as well as her own. The script is extremely verbose but Coel delivers each line with steady precision; there is a mesmerising quality to her performance, which is measured in comparison to Hathaway’s more erratic and physical persona. At one point Hathaway performs a dance without music, throwing her body around the dusty barn that the majority of the film is set in, convulsing in a silent ecstasy of torment. It’s breathtaking to watch, and Hathaway puts everything into the performance.
My divas are having a cheekbone-off.
Things take a turn when the women (oh, by the way, there are absolutely no men in this film – thank God) start to discuss what they have been doing during their period of separation, and discover that each has experienced the same haunting, by a ghost represented by a flowing sheet of blood-red fabric. Lowery uses the landscape of his film playfully, turning Sam’s barn into a theatre set to show flashbacks, and casting many scenes against a gaping black void to ramp up the terror and make that red ghost pop. The atmosphere is dark and moody but there is still a lot of humour and levity, and a warmth to Mary and Sam’s relationship.
The other half of the film’s visual language is its masterful fashion, drawing from pieces by costume designer Bina Daigeler and the great Iris van Herpen. Mary’s signature is her elaborate set of haloes, playing into the religious allusions of her character, and her dresses are equally triumphant: a particularly memorable standout is a Joan of Arc-inspired look, complete with armour and dripping blood. When you’re making a film about a successful designer, it’s crucial that you make their work actually good, and Lowery succeeds on every level. It’s a long shot based on the (undeserved) reception, but this film should get a Costume nomination at the Oscars next year. If Cruella did it (and won!) surely this can too.
I need the gays to do for Mother Mary what they did for Ashley O.
As a great fictional designer needs great designs, a great fictional popstar needs great songs. The soundtrack by Charli xcx, Jack Antonoff and fka twigs (who also cameos in the film) rightfully gives the diva her dues, and creates music for Mary that is both as dark as her persona, and reflecting a more commercial side that would get her sold-out arena tours – it’s in some middle point between Gaga, Taylor Swift and xcx’s electronic beats. I would be hitting her up on Spotify (although don’t take that as any indicator of taste).
As the haunting ramps up, the layers peel back to show the heart of the relationship between Mary and Sam. Is it love? Friendship? Obsession? Is it mutual? One-sided? The film is deliberately ambiguous, but frankly I struggle to see anything other than love at play here, and the abundance of yonic imagery seems to support this theory. Lowery is no stranger to a ghostly love story, but he also seems to be talking about the artistic process, and the tension in his own life between commercial art and true honesty – Sam’s designs lay her heart bare, whilst Mary’s music is curated for the mass market and masks her true feelings. Similarly, Lowery has made commercial films for Disney (Pete’s Dragon, Peter Pan and Wendy) amongst his auteur cinema, and understands these two sides of the artist better than most. But then sometimes you need the money and the reputation from those compromised studio films to release something like this: complicated, uncommercial, a film that many will not appreciate for its tone and presentation, but will absolutely be lauded as a cult hit by those whom it appeals to (me).
How can you not scream MOTHER?
Mother Mary has received generally lukewarm reviews from major critics, which is disappointing to see. I can’t deny its pretentiousness, which walks a fine line, and I have found similar films to be far too self-indulgent, but this one just worked for me. Maybe it was the glorious visuals coupled with the layered and thoughtful story; maybe I’m just a sucker for a good ghostly tale; maybe religious allusions will hook me in every time; but it feels like Lowery was stitching this film together from the fabric of my specific interests. Like the dress Sam creates for Mary, this film is bold, stunning, weird – and very, very red.
Director: David Lowery
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Michaela Coel, Hunter Schafer, fka twigs
Runtime: 112m
Certificate: 15
Country: United Kingdom, United States
Images: Homebird Productions, augenschein Filmproduktion, A24