Mother Mary: More Than Religio-Goth Gestures?

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2:40Adam Kempenaar:Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. See any standard 2D movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions. Sign up now on the Regal app or at the link in our description and use code filmspot26 to receive 15 % off.

3:04What kind of a show are you guys putting on here today? You're not interested in art? No. Now look, we're going to do this thing.

3:10Adam Kempenaar:We're going to have a conversation. Hey, film spotters, Adam and Josh here. busy week at FilmSpotting HQ. And we're doing what we've been doing, Josh, which is to give listeners an in-depth discussion separately from jamming it into the big show. Rather than jamming it in or giving an abbreviated discussion, we realized, you know, we have other days of the week to put episodes into our feed. Why not use them? This is true. Absolutely. Yeah. A little bit of a new strategy, but hopefully listeners have been appreciating it, maybe getting to, it's not that fire hose we've been dropping on folks every Friday for, you know, well over a decade now.

3:55Adam Kempenaar:Exactly. And we do have, I'll tease it. We've got some other new stuff in the works that we're excited about. Can't give you more details yet, but you have something to look forward to. You also have some immediate content to look forward to this week coming in our normal Friday episode. You will get the 40s madness champion. That's right? We didn't trip the lever that gives you the results. You can't find it on challenge. You can't find it at filmspotting.net. We are saving it for the Friday episode when we reveal the greatest film of the 1940s, according to film spotting listeners. Is it Casablanca or is it Citizen Kane?

4:34Adam Kempenaar:Josh, you don't even know the answer at this point, do you? I'd be very tempted to spoil it right here and now for listeners, except I'm in the dark as well. I'm trying to read your face. You had a vested interest in this outcome. I definitely did. But you're, yeah, you're keeping it pretty cool. So I'll have to wait for a little bit myself to learn. We will also share our summer movie preview. So look for that in our normal Friday slot. Here though, we wanted to make sure that we talked about the new film from David Lowery, Mother Mary. I hadn't seen her in over 10 years.

5:16But I could tell she was coming from a thousand miles away.

5:24Why don't you start with why you're here? Sam, I need a dress.

5:30Adam Kempenaar:Josh sitting in the theater recently watching the trailer for Mother Mary. at about the precise moment I was thinking, I'm really going to have to go back to my notes for a ghost story for this review, huh? A headline pops up on screen, emphatically informing me, this is not a ghost story. Soon, the winking marketers would tell me, this is not a love story either. What then is Mother Mary? Because, correct me if I'm wrong, there are ghosts. And there is love. or at least the remnants of a passionate romance between Anne Hathaway's haunted pop star looking to mount a comeback following a mysterious accident and her costume designer, Sam.

6:15Adam Kempenaar:The couple are estranged as lovers and creative partners, but still seem to be caught in some kind of codependent web. It's also occasionally a full-blown concert film. Daniel Hart composes the music with Jack Antonoff and Charlie XCX composing original songs along with a contribution from English singer-songwriter FKA Twigs, who also turns in a very memorable performance during a late-night Dublin seance. And it's a chamber play. Hathaway and Cole spent almost the entire first half of the movie embroiled in a cat-and-mouse conversation in an expansive barn-slash-studio that's so dark and intimately shot that it often feels like there's no space between them at all.

6:56So, you've come calling back to me. I didn't know where else to go. So tell me. What do you see in your head? Me. Oh, yes, I remember. This is all about you. What song are you singing? I'll play it for you if you want. I don't want to break my streak. What? Of not listening to your music.

7:21Adam Kempenaar:On top of all that, Josh, Mother Mary is a movie about the making of art, collaboration, and the thorny question of ownership, not unlike Cole's other film out now, discussed recently here on FilmSpotting, Steven Soderbergh's very good The Christophers. Did you enjoy David Lowery's latest on all these levels? Some? None? Well, speaking of the trailer, I saw this with Debbie and we were, I forget what we were at, something recently and saw the trailer before we saw Mother Mary together and her response coming out of the trailer was, what in the world is that all about? Intrigued. We were both eager to see it.

8:03Adam Kempenaar:So we went to see it. She came out of the movie itself and said, what in the world was that all about? There you go. I think this is not a movie that offers a clear necessarily experience or reading, but to your specific question, all those things it dabbles in, to me it did intriguingly well enough to, if not add up to a coherent whole, made me glad I had the experience and tried to piece it together and am still trying to piece it together. I do think it's absolutely a ghost story. That's pretty literal. And we can talk about, which I think we will, what sort of ghost we mean by that. They essentially show it in the trailer.

8:50Adam Kempenaar:They show it. But there are also maybe a few different sorts of ghosts that Lowry could be suggesting here. The concert scenes, I found enrapturing, honestly, and partly because they were a bit of a break away from that two-hander, that intensely claustrophobic nature where this feels for long stretches like it could be a play. And then we'd break away to a flashback or something or a vision of one of Mother Mary's concerts. And it kind of busted things open, allowed Lowry to indulge in some of the visual flair that he's done in other films, particularly, I would say The Green Knight, but maybe The Ghost Story a little bit too.

9:29Adam Kempenaar:That was a little more stripped down, but visually interesting. So yeah, I did enjoy this. I don't know that it felt like a series of, I guess, religio-goth gestures, and that might sound like, oh, well, then there's nothing there. I think there's a little more there, if not exactly as much as I might have hoped. It's interesting to hear you describe, let's start with this maybe, their relationship between Sam and Mother Mary as clearly having a romantic foundation or past. That was one of the questions that I felt was being teased back and forth. Was this an intense friendship? They reference having known each other, I think, since they were kids.

10:16Adam Kempenaar:There is definitely an electricity between them that suggests potential romance. But at the same time, not necessarily the movie I felt almost didn't give us a firm sense of whether they were just very intense artistic collaborators and friends, or this actually at one point was a romantic situation. and maybe if I had a reservation, it's that the fuzziness of that for me made the final moments a little bit of a letdown where without saying more in spoilers, I think it makes a quick turn back to that potential reading without laying a lot of the groundwork that might've made that more rewarding.

10:59Adam Kempenaar:So, but it sounds like you, you were pretty firmly in the, they had a romantic past camp and that was part of the dynamic at play here. Well, I said that in the intro, So that's where I was leaning. But I do think it's fair to say that there is enough ambiguity that even though I'm pretty sure that I recall correctly, at one point, a character says it's Hathaway's character says to Cole's character, something about love uses the word love specifically. And how do I show it to you? That does, I think for most viewers, conjure the notion of romance, but it doesn't have to be that. there is enough ambiguity that perhaps the collaborative nature of their relationship and the bond that they have, the combination of friendship and creative collaboration is so strong that that is something like love that isn't of a romantic nature.

12:02Adam Kempenaar:I am willing to go down that path with this movie because you're right that the movie doesn't spell it out, that it is necessarily of a sexual romantic nature. We don't necessarily see that, do we? So yes, the movie leaves open those doors and to its detriment or to its credit. We really did see this movie, it seems, exactly the same. Dabbles is a very good word to use, Josh. At this point, I haven't rated it yet on Letterboxd. I'm also behind by about 15 movies rating them on Letterboxd. I don't know if I'll get to it. Maybe that's what I'll do. I'll just hold off. And so I don't have to commit to a rating one way or another because I was having that experience.

12:47Adam Kempenaar:This is one of those films. I'll say it. It's a conundrum. And it's not because it's too confounding to follow or it necessarily leaves you with too many big unanswered questions. I just can't think of too many cases where I've watched a movie and my experience with it is such that I'm aware as I'm watching it of a certain scene where I think it's the movie's high point and simultaneously the movie's low point or the moment where it becomes completely fractured. and that happened here. And I don't want to get to it yet. I wonder if you can speculate and know what scene you think it is. But what I do think, to echo what you said, Josh, from the start, what's ultimately disappointing about this film is that it works a little bit and maybe just enough on all of those levels individually.

13:43Adam Kempenaar:You use the word electricity. There is an electric charge to their conversations, certainly initially, when we're learning about their relationship. I felt a little bit like a detective sitting there in the theater trying to put all these pieces together, right? What exactly happened to Mary? What is the nature of this relationship in terms of their dynamics? Like we were just discussing, you're trying to put it all together. How far back did they go? All of those things are at play. And it's really fun to think about. And And it's fun to listen to them banter with each other. And it was fun for me as well, having seen the Christophers and Chris Klemek alluded to this during our review.

14:25Adam Kempenaar:It's fun to see Michaela Cole in the opposite side of this two-hander. Because there are parallels between this film and the Christophers. But she's now in that other side where she's the one that's dominating the relationship and doing all the talking. as opposed to being more nonverbal and doing more observation. That's Hathaway here. So there is a charge to those conversation scenes. And I agree, there's a charge to those performance scenes too when we get them. I also think there's a charge listening. You know, I'm going to be a sucker for those scenes that are about the creative process. So I got a charge listening to Sam talk about her work and prod Mary about the dress and what she's looking for, and then watching her visions for the dress.

15:17Adam Kempenaar:And I use visions intentionally. I found it very arresting, for example, the moment when Cole's character turns, Sam, and sees Mary walking down some stairs. This is just in the barn, the studio. But she sees her in that costume that she made for her famously. We come to learn later it's that Joan of Arc costume. And it's incredible, right? It's just an incredible costume with the white and the blood. And that's how she sees her in that moment. And so those scenes where creativity is treated almost like it's supernatural, that's when the movie is at its most interesting. But I'll say somehow, and I'll try to articulate as best as I can at some point here, but all of that, it just never quite coheres for some reason, does it?

16:13Adam Kempenaar:None of those things truly pay off in a satisfying way. I want to return to the idea of creativity as a supernatural force, and maybe it's tied into that scene you're referencing where you enjoyed it, but sounds like things may be falling apart a little bit. Both of those elements involve spoilers, probably. So let's save that to the end. And I just want to go back to a few of the things you touched on and the performances here. I think that's the second element that made me finally come out glad again that I'd seen this and appreciated of this movie because it's not only their dynamic. I think Hathaway is quite good, but for me, Cole is the revelation here.

16:50Adam Kempenaar:And this is really the only extended work of hers I've had a chance to experience. And the way she carries both of these monologues, you already referenced to the one which is about fashion and what they're trying to do, what designing the right dress for the right person costume, really, for the right purpose was just fascinating to hear her go on this kind of lengthy monologue about it. And then she also has a great monologue about To Mary, about a pop star's burden carrying other people's emotions. And, you know, this is something that's been commonly understood with the recent like mega concerts we've had in recent years from the likes of Beyonce and Taylor Swift and just trying to get behind the psychology of these, you know, religious experiences people are having at these concerts.

17:45Adam Kempenaar:And this has been one of the things that's often pointed out is that, well, the pop star is channeling these emotions someone feels but doesn't get a chance to maybe express in their daily life. And they're holding that for them. And Sam gets a speech about that. That's one of the most succinct yet on point summations of that that I've heard that was fascinating. And just to hear the back and forth between them on these topics. So the performances are good. And then the other thing is sort of what I've already mentioned, why this movie did have a pull for me. There's electricity in their performances, but otherwise in a lot of the filmmaking, it's almost, it's woozy in a way that's entrancing.

18:30Adam Kempenaar:It doesn't make you sleepy, but it makes you feel like you're experiencing some sort of dream or the characters are. This could ease it feels like this is could easily this whole movie could easily be a dream that Mary is having about Sam or Sam is having about Mary the entire time. The logic then makes more sense when you look at it that way. If you apply dream logic, we're doing just fine. Right. We're OK. So so I think that's all all of that stuff with which Lowry does sustain throughout the movie that had me on board for it, even if I couldn't quite put all those pieces together. and even if I don't think it came together all the way at the end.

19:11Adam Kempenaar:I do want to call out one filmmaking moment that was a highlight for me. And there's this sequence where we're starting to understand related again to the burden that Mary carries as a pop star and why she's reached this point of exhaustion. One of the reasons. And again, we leave the quote unquote stage of this barn, the studio barn. And I don't even know if this is a flashback, if this is a dream, a memory. But we see Mary being dressed for a performance backstage, going up some stairs onto the stage. We hear the crowd and then the door, we're parallel to this. We see her come out the door, which is essentially her coming down the stage.

19:51Adam Kempenaar:So the camera never leaves or goes, quote unquote, on stage. It's staying fixed. Mary comes down completely broken and exhausted from the performance. all her handlers start taking her costume off and right in front of her is another set of stairs that she they dress her again this is all in one take i think it's certainly one sequence they dress her again she goes up the stairs same thing we don't go on stage should we see her come down the stairs exhausted i don't know if it happens a third time but that was just in terms of the staging and the imagination and the way to capture you know that sort of burden that a pop star might carry and how they might feel after it was kind of it was just kind of thrilling to see it envisioned that way thrilling is the right word that's that's part of that incredible sequence that's maybe about what two-thirds of the way through this movie that also includes this this extended take at one point and at various points incorporates different unless i'm thinking of a different scene, Josh.

20:54Adam Kempenaar:That's that long sequence, right? The main concert sequence that leads up to the moment where we learn about what really happened to her. Isn't it part of that core sequence? I don't honestly remember where it is in relation to that reveal. I feel like it might be distinct from it. I feel like it might be closer to when they're talking again about a pop star carrying the audience's emotions, but I could be wrong. My sense of that, because I had something similar in my notes around that portion, And what it depicts either way, either in that sequence or later, the film itself, what it what it seems to get right.

21:31Adam Kempenaar:And that wooziness, I like that word, what it captures about that, that life of a pop star that obviously I don't understand. But from seeing so many movies and what it imparts to us, that experience is this idea that you just described of Mary being both within and without her body at all times. It it feels like the best way that it could possibly be. It's not something that could be described, certainly not described with words. And the only way it could be done is with imagery like that. And there's a phrase we we do here a couple of times. I think she says it. I think maybe one of her handlers says it, or maybe it's even Sam, but it's something along the lines of this is what you do.

22:17Adam Kempenaar:This is what I do that, that when you are feeling overwhelmed, when your psyche feels like it's, it's at its end point and you can't go on somehow you just keep doing it. And the sequence, the stares, the endlessness of it, somehow they can keep going through the motions, but go through the motions quite convincingly. They can still keep doing the performance, this loop of performance after performance, while still, and here's one of those films, right, the Todd Haynes film, while still somehow not being there. still somehow not being fully there as a presence. And that sequence, the sequence I'm thinking of, where we do finally get a pretty big reveal and where the movie does fully go into immersive concert scene mode.

23:11Adam Kempenaar:And we do get different shot scales in addition to the long take that we get and that immersiveness of the sound that I mentioned and the graininess of different film stock. I mean, Lowry is, you know, the kitchen sink is, you know, everything is there. And it all works. That sequence was where I was most thrilled by this film. But Josh, that's also the sequence that I was referring to earlier, where I felt like I was riding so high with the film. And I also, the more it went on, the more I was acutely aware that the, the longer I spent in that concert world, the longer I entered that portal and was with this, this mother, Mary ghostly version.

24:07Adam Kempenaar:I'll not really, but you know what I mean? This, this other alter ego version of mother, Mary, not the one that's in the studio with Sam in, in this vision in the past, in the flashback, the more we're spending with her and we spend a long time with her and we barely even cut back to them after spending so much time with them in this in this play in this two-hander the more we're with her the more we're losing our grip on the foundation of this film the more we're losing our grip on what is the core of this movie which is their relationship and so all of these different elements of this movie there there should be this real this real mystery at the core of them all there should be these ideas i think that you're left to consider the art story the ghost story the love story and a movie this bold shouldn't feel so disposable i guess in terms of there should be more to linger leave you lingering on beyond some of the imagery and some of the imagery definitely does.

25:15Adam Kempenaar:And I think I'm thinking as I left the theater, I'm thinking about Cole and Hathaway and Lowry and all of these talented collaborators that they're all working with. And I was legitimately concerned. Maybe I maybe I missed something. Why does this never cohesively pay off the way I wanted it to? And the only thing I could think of is that there's a precise moment when the love story, the ghost story, and creative feud directly converge. But the film can't supply the connective tissue to hold them together. And it's that moment. It's when we go into the past, and it's when we get the concert scene, and it's when we get the Dublin seance.

25:58Adam Kempenaar:And the longer we spend in the past, that's when I felt myself, that's when, for me, that's when I I felt myself disconnecting from the characters and disconnecting, felt myself detaching from the film. Love bread, baked goods and pasta, but not the way they make you feel? What if I told you there are macro-friendly options that don't taste like sawdust and sadness? Satisfying sandwiches, fully loaded bagels, noodles that can stand up to your favorite chunky sauces. All delicious. Craveworthy and smart, each serving of Hero Bread has up to 19 grams of protein and 32 grams of fiber. And just 0 to 5 grams net carbs and 0 grams sugar.

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27:07See nutrition info on hero.co for sodium and sugar content. This is Jana Kramer from Windown with Jana Kramer. Instead of giving your mom something that fades, give her something that becomes part of her home this Mother's Day. The Lennox Spice Village is a set of 24 hand-painted little houses that are actually spice jars. Perfect for anyone who loves to cook, entertain, or enjoy the little details that make everyday life special. As a mom, I love gifts that help turn ordinary moments into memories. Charming, timeless, and meant to be used, this is one of those pieces she'll treasure. And once you see it, you'll want it for your own home too.