If you’ve ever dreamed a dream of seeing Anne Hathaway reunite with an icy, no-nonsense fashionista from her past for the first time in over a decade, then this must surely be a red letter week in cinema history.
Mother Mary has already landed at your local, with The Devil Wears Prada 2 hot on its high heels. One would be forgiven for thinking that two fashion-centric Hathaway movies would be at risk of eating into each other’s audience, but the two seem to be different enough beasts to merit a Friday night double bill of all things Annie.
‘You tell me something – like how you’re feeling – and I’ll turn those feelings into a dress’
Mother Mary, not unlike a young, starry-eyed Andy Sachs, is driven by a remarkable sense of ambition, yet seems to struggle with the weight of its concepts, too. Hathaway plays Mary, an iconic pop-star who used to wow crowds with spectacular, Lady Gaga-style costumes and performances before a controversy brought her career crumbling down. We meet her ten years later, on the eve of her comeback show, as she turns up unannounced at her old designer’s remote studio in the hopes of getting the perfect dress (and perhaps even reconciling their turbulent relationship).
Michaela Coel co-stars as Sam, the imposingly efficient costumer who sees each design as an art piece in and of itself. The pair’s fantastic dynamic stands as the backbone of the entire picture, which runs as something of a two-hour two-hander that you could easily envision working just as well (if not better) on stage.
The entire first act of the film takes place in Sam’s workshop, a converted barn, where the two are given ample room to spar off with one another. Coel attacks her role with brilliant bite, committing to the remarkable theatricality of the script’s dialogue (which frequently dives into artsy metaphors) without ever letting things go off the deep end into outright pretentious territory, as it easily could have. A single beam of light shines in from a sunroof, bringing a terrifying glint to her eyes.
Hathaway’s performance is a little more subdued by comparison, but they play off of each other very well and I was consistently surprised by just how engrossed in the conversation I was for it being such an extended scene. It really caught me off guard.
From there, the film goes to some unexpected places that I won’t spoil. I went in knowing nothing but the title and the film’s two stars and was I encourage you to do the same if Mother Mary sounds intriguing to you. It’s a little hard to describe in terms of genre, toeing the line between drama, thriller and something more psychological, but some moments really, really caught my attention. Though its original pop songs (brought to the table by Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX) are pretty instantly forgettable, the bombast of their respective, Eurovision-style sequences stick with you.
David Lowery (director of The Green Knight) brings some captivating sights to this new feature while echoing some of his previous work’s best qualities and there’s a lovely sense of momentum that makes the film’s runtime fly by faster than most others in the current cinema line-up. Lowery manages to seamlessly shift the story back and forth between the current narrative and the flashbacks with a confidence that Michael could only dream of.
Given the script’s more theatrical and psychological tendencies, though, there comes a point where it’s a little unclear as to what’s real and what’s fake, and what’s actually happening at the heart of this narrative beyond the eye-catching imagery and the gothic atmosphere. I wanted a better understanding of the physical tangibility of the problem at hand, rather than simply recognising it on a conceptual level. By the end, I did feel the ideas at play tripping over themselves and the threat of the whole thing feeling just a tad too ‘arthouse’ started to rear its head, but luckily the film had the wherewithal to cap things off before we reached that point. For the most part, though, it’s a twisting, well-performed ride that might speak to you more than it did for me.
BBFC: Rated 15 for strong violence, injury detail, language.
Mother Mary is in cinemas now.
