Flop Star
Anne Hathaway and Micaela Coel’s promising pop-star flick 'Mother Mary' is like a would-be hit song without a hook.
Mother Mary, filmmaker David Lowery’s gothic horror about a pop star in crisis and her fashion designer frenemy, has all the makings of an artful music movie—on paper. Its cast is more than capable, with Anne Hathaway as the lip-quivering title character and the mesmerizing Micaela Coel as her long-lost pal. Its eerie electronic soundtrack was helmed by Charli XCX, FKA Twigs, and Jack Antonoff, people who know a thing or two about hit songs (and the madness of fame). And Lowery, who crafted 2021’s visionary mindfuck The Green Knight, is skilled at delivering sumptuous visuals, saturated mood lighting, and abstract sequences to set a spooky tone.
Even with all the parts in place, though, Mother Mary is a meandering movie that struggles to find anything meaningful to say—or even a coherent plot. In the middle of a gloomy rainstorm, Hathaway’s Swiftian pop icon Mother Mary races to the English estate of Sam (Coel), who created Mary’s Catholic-alluding halo look when she was an unknown artist years ago, before they fell out. Mary is shivering, wan, and desperate for Sam to make her a dress that helps her feel “like her” again, meant for some unnamed performance where her opening act is a new, Gracie Abrams-esque starlet who’s nipping at her heels. But as Mary and Sam discuss the gown and (mostly) their beef, something more sinister emerges: a ghostly apparition in the form of a big red swathe of floating chiffon. Is the ghost meant to represent their friendship, once indestructible, now shattered? Is it the spectre of the artist’s ego, threatening to consume their humane self? Or is it a strong pheromone, representing the lightly horny, hate-fucky vibes these two creatives might share? It wasn’t exactly spelled out and, despite Coel’s best efforts, became such a chore to parse that I left the movie not really caring anyway.
