A sensual and spectral study of a fractured friendship, and creative pairing
Like David Lowery’s other spiritual creations The Green Knight and A Ghost Story, Mother Mary is impeccably considered, deeply layered, resplendent in presentation, and unafraid to dally with the supernatural. It’s a film steeped in longing and artistry, a metaphysical chamber piece that binds creative collaboration to emotional devastation.
At its center is Anne Hathaway as a global pop icon in torment. Her estrangement from her closest friend and former creative partner, fashion designer Sam Anslem (Michaela Coel), has left both women adrift. A decade earlier, Sam helped cultivate the image that made Mother Mary a star, now, their severed ties haunt them like an open wound. A comeback performance, following a traumatic onstage accident, forces Mary to confront the past she’s been avoiding. Fleeing her entourage, she seeks out Sam to design a dress for the occasion, something true, something declarative, and absolutely not red. What follows is a long, dark night of the soul inside Sam’s studio, tucked within an old farmhouse on the outskirts of London. Hurt is dragged into the open, broken bonds are examined, and a supernatural tether between them begins to reveal itself, if one chooses to believe it.
Lowery crafts an enthralling reunion, two influential women, each formidable in her field, each a formative part of the other. Male figures drift through the film like afterthoughts, leaving the emotional and creative powerplay entirely in the hands of Hathaway and Coel. The dynamic evokes the sensual, artistically charged tension of Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy, but with its own distinct emotional and intimate register.
Hathaway delivers a performance of remarkable assuredness, interweaving potency and fragility with ease. Coel simmers with precision and pain, her presence magnetic even in stillness. The film becomes a dance between them, a shifting, intimate exploration of reconnection and rediscovery, of reforging a creative partnership as well as a friendship. Their lingering hurt manifests in clenched jaws, fleeting tears, blunt truths, and even the faint threat of violence as a pair of fabric scissors hover just a little too close.
Flashbacks expand the film’s emotional terrain, juxtaposing the pair’s fractured present with the rapturous heights of Mother Mary’s career. These sequences showcase the stunning work of costume designer Bina Daigeler and the musical contributions of Jack Antonoff, Charli XCX, and FKA Twigs (who also turns in a striking supporting performance). They also underscore how deeply Sam’s artistry shaped Mary’s image, and how deeply Mary’s thrall shaped Sam.
Both women can make a case for being the victim, of each other and the rigors and requirements of the careers that unfolded in front of them. Both carry flaws, regrets, and the self-destructive tendencies that often accompany creative brilliance. The pressures of fame, the demands of artistic identity, and the emotional toll of collaboration all converge into a supernatural metaphor: a ghostly emanation born of Sam’s hurt, seeking out Mary’s fragile psyche and, in doing so, binding them back together. A ghost as regret isn’t new, nor is an exorcism as emotional catharsis, but Lowery’s execution, paired with the rawness of the performances, makes the familiar feel newly potent.
Lowery’s vision thrives on ambiguity. His confident embrace of open interpretation, combined with Andrew Droz Palermo’s luminous cinematography and Daniel Wurtzel’s ethereal special effects, conjures an evocative, experiential work. Mother Mary becomes a singular creation, a ghost story reimagined through the lens of artistic partnership, emotional rupture, and the possibility of renewal. A creation that lingers, not because of its supernatural elements, but because of its deeply human ones.
Mother Mary sees limited release from April 17th, opening wide on April 24th
