It’s a dark and stormy night (isn’t it always?) when Mother Mary appears at Sam’s door.
The titular pop star of David Lowery’s new psychological thriller (played by Anne Hathaway) doesn’t look so much like a pop star at this moment. She steps into Sam’s (Michaela Coel) house, which is a flurry of action as the fashion designer gets ready for her upcoming show. Mary is dripping wet, devoid of makeup, her dark roots showing through her blonde dye job, singularly focused on finding Sam despite the best efforts of Sam’s assistant, Hilda (Hunter Schaefer). She finally breaks through the door of Sam’s bedroom. Sam is lying prone, but her eyes are wide open. It’s been years since the two have seen each other, but Sam has been waiting for this.
“Sam,” Mary exhales. “I need a dress.”
This is the simplest explanation one could give for the set up of “Mother Mary” – a pop star, recovering from a personal crisis, returns to her former stylist (and friend) to beg for help one last time. What unfolds, however, is a psychological exploration of co-dependency between pop star and audience (and between two former friends) that mostly takes place within conversations between two actors at the top of their game – that is, until about halfway through, when Lowery decides to go straight haunting mode.
But, this is not a ghost story. It is a fascinating cinematic study of the emotional tenets of pop stardom. Beyond the capitalism of it all, beyond the careful construction of persona, what does it mean to stand at a Beyoncé, or Lady Gaga, or Taylor Swift (whose “Reputation” tour was a great inspiration for “Mother Mary”) concert, screaming your guts out, putting all of the emotional weight of your feelings on one singular person? “Mother Mary” is interested in that relationship, but also in painting a portrait of two broken people attempting to exorcise their personal demons. It’s a visual feast, haunting and exhilarating, held down by two performances that sing with a sense of heightened drama. And, if you’re going to make a movie about a pop star, drama is key.
The first section of “Mother Mary” dances around the question of what, exactly, happened between Mary and Sam to make them leave their professional and personal relationship behind. And watching the ebb and flow of the verbal sparring between them is delicious. As Sam, Coel is asked to do the most monologuing, going full Shakespearean witch at times, her face a mask of tension hiding something angry and hurt. She rarely lets that hurt break through – whereas Hathaway’s chin seems to be in constant quiver mode, Coel only ever shows us a sliver of that vulnerability. She prefers to stay one step ahead of Mary, constantly picking at old wounds. When Mary points this out, Sam bites out venomously: “I need to see what I need to cover.”
That is a stylist’s job, in a sense, and Hathaway deftly moves back and forth between Mary’s soft underbelly and the powerful icon she becomes onstage. It is perhaps the best compliment I can give to her performance that she doesn’t feel like an actress playing at being a pop star. She simply is. It helps that the songs (from Jack Antonoff, Charli XCX, and FKA Twigs) are actually good, but Hathaway’s physical presence onstage is a mesmerizing mix of elegance and power. However, outside of those moments onstage, her voice feels ragged, her body fragile (despite the literal six pack on display in one particular scene – the fact that this is a profession that requires copious amounts of physical strength is not lost on this film).
But, she can change into that icon on a dime. When she’s first looking for Sam, she’s all but running around the house, completely winded, barely able to eke out Sam’s name. But when Sam gives her a verbal cue – “Can you stop time?” – Mother Mary literally snaps to attention. She’s all of a sudden taller, more graceful, taking up every inch of space in the room. A star has entered our midst.
Ultimately, we learn that what broke up Sam and Mary was fairly run of the mill. Mary wanted a change but was too afraid to say so, Sam felt underappreciated – a tale as old as time. This point is when the movie begins to change. We’ve been in one location – Sam’s warehouse of a workshop – for most of the film’s runtime, Lowery using that warehouse like an avant-garde performance space, Sam and Mary watching scenes unfold before them as the space transforms into a stage or a hotel room. But here, the visuals become more ethereal, less easy to pin down – there is a ghost afoot.
Well, maybe she’s not a ghost. She is more of a presence – a silky, red, undulating thing that functions as a literalization of Sam’s broken heart after Mary leaves. Sam was eventually able to cast that pain out, inadvertently sending it to Mary. After all, who is a better vessel for our shared pain than a pop star? But this is a type of pain that Mary is unprepared for.
This haunting of sorts brings up a thousand questions and ideas about how we interact with pop stars. After a show, Mary meets a young woman named Imogen (FKA Twigs) who asks her how she handles being the emotional epicenter of tens of thousands of people. How do you handle that screaming, that worship, that heartbreak, that unbelievable height of emotion, when it’s all directed at you? Mary’s response, without so many words, is that she internalizes it and uses it as a force of power. But when Imogen digs – how does it affect you? – the question gives Mary pause. She hasn’t thought much about it. As much as this is about Mother Mary, that part of it has never really been about her.
But, what makes “Mother Mary” a cut above is that it’s more than just a metaphor. This question comes the very same night that Sam’s “ghost” appears to Mary for the first time, subsuming her, settling within her like a stone. Why does this pain affect Mary more than what fans have projected onto her for decades? Because this time, it comes from a friend. It is a real hurt that she caused, not just hurt she can reflect back at the masses.
By mapping the parasocial relationship we have with the Taylor Swifts of the world onto a very real relationship, Lowery captures the raw power pop music can have, giving it an emotional weight it is often robbed of. There have been many movies about pop stars and pop music over the years. They often settle on the trauma of the pop star as the driving force, and even at their best – such as something like Bradley Cooper’s “A Star is Born” – they are often dismissive of pop music as an art form. “Mother Mary” does neither of these things. It is interested in why we are so willing to give these (mostly) women our devotion, and the strength it takes to hold the emotions of the masses. At the same time, it’s also interested in Mary’s very real relationship to Sam, and it treats both of these things with the same drama, the same pomp, the same depth of feeling.
“Mother Mary” is in theaters this Friday.
