"I need a dress," says the pop star to the dress-maker. The singer known as Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) is dripping wet from the rain, matted hair in rows of bottle blonde and brunette, and wearing a shapeless black hoodie. The dress-maker Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), all beautiful cheekbones and stylish wisps of hair pointing in all the right directions, coolly accepts her.
They have a history. During Sam's opening narration, we learn that Mary's presence causes her great discomfort. So much so that she knew she would be knocking on the door. It's not long before they are left alone together, and, for a while the movie is a talky two-hander, like Waiting for Godot or My Dinner with Andre. The dialogue is careful, elegant. It might be blank verse. It's certainly not realistic, and we sense that there's something going on here that's a bit out of the ordinary.
We find out, slowly, in bits and pieces, that Sam was Mary's dresser when she was first starting out, before fame enveloped her life. At some point, Sam was cut loose, and in a way that greatly distressed Sam and could have been better handled by Mary. Sam built up her own business (she's now preparing for a big fashion show), and has done her best to ignore Mary's music and general pop culture presence. Mary never wanted their relationship to end. Things just got complicated.
It's never mentioned what kind of relationship this is, romantic, platonic, or somewhere in-between. We only know that there are intense feelings. Sam admits that she attended one of Mary's shows, was in the front row. Mary never saw her, or pretended not to see her. The situation was too intense. Sam broke a tooth from clenching her jaw. She left early. Then, her story takes an unexpected turn and becomes a ghost story. Just as unexpectedly, Mary has seen the same ghost.
One of the complaints about Mother Mary is that there's too little story to justify a feature-length movie of 112 minutes. Who cares about these two women who had a fight a while back and are now on the verge of making up, if only they'd just spit it out? But this is a David Lowery film, and he rarely does things in a regular way. If you'll remember, Lowery's The Green Knight also seemed to have no point: the hero strikes a blow and must receive a return blow. His A Ghost Story is likewise similar, the story of a ghost that watches life pass by. But there's so much more than just that.
Mother Mary feels like a combination, or a culmination, of those two movies. It's gentle, and gently-paced. It's observant. It's patient. It's about life, but it's imaginative enough to look beyond life to find ideas that can help put life in perspective. The film uses flashbacks — and flash-sides — to show Mother Mary on stage, or to tell part of the ghost story (which features FKA Twigs in a small, but memorable role). These turn surreal, such as a scene in which Mary endlessly walks up stairs to go onstage, and walks down stairs after the encore, increasingly exhausted.
To tell the truth, I don't have the answer key for this movie. I don't know for sure what it's really about. But the thing that popped into my mind at the end was E.M. Forster's famous quote "only connect!" We are walking and talking flesh and blood, but what's the point if we can't or won't or don't touch others, emotionally, spiritually, and physically? Part of who we are is the effect we have on others. That's my best guess, anyway.
I will say that I think this is my new favorite Anne Hathaway film (along with Colossal). She has done great work in many mediocre films, but has been in service of great or near-great film (Rachel Getting Married was probably the last) too few times. Here she is achingly emotional, searingly resonant. I was unfamiliar with Michaela Coel — she was a warrior in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and created the series I May Destroy You — but she is likewise mesmerizing, whip-smart, coy, and skillful.
Lowery's films in general (except for his delightful Pete's Dragon re-do) tend to put some viewers off with their curious nature. They don't outright challenge viewers; they're not aggressive, and they have nothing to teach. They simply invite viewers to do a little imagining, to see themselves in the characters and to wonder what it all means. Perhaps we can wonder if there's a little more to this crazy life than we might have first guessed.
