Grant Sputore
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With homage paid to films like Alien , I Am Mother wrestles with the desire to be original, and ultimately wins.
From the octagonal curvature of the walls and giant doors, to the fluorescent lighting, muted color palette and ominous atmosphere, director Grant Sputore channels Ridley Scott’s Alien with pitch-perfect devotion.
It takes guts to make a science-fiction/horror film that visually recalls Alien and name its repository of artificial intelligence “Mother.”
There is a bit of “Alien” in the very-lonely-in-this-metal-box scenery, and some “Aliens” in Swank’s jagged, terse portrayal of the robo-hating survivor.
Evoking similar feelings I had while watching films like 10 Cloverfield Lane, Moon, Ex Machina (and in some ways, even The Terminator ), I Am Mother strikes a perfect balance, delivering up an intriguing slice of post-apocalyptic sci-fi coupled with a thoughtful character study that finds new ways to explore the dangers of technology and how it relates to all of humanity as we continue to transition towards greater leaps in automation and electronic sciences.
Not only is Alien an obvious touchstone for this sci-fi saga, but so too are The Terminator , Ex Machina , 10 Cloverfield Lane and Moon , among numerous other tales about solitary figures trapped in mysterious bunkers or facilities.
It presents these questions about motherhood, the definition of humanity, and the ethical rebuilding of mankind in the wake of global catastrophe in a sophisticated fashion, but then proceeds to never do anything with them in favour of turning I Am Mother into another bog-standard, monotonous rip-off of The Terminator (right down to a painfully obvious and frankly embarrassing cut-rate musical cue), only this time with a wrinkle that the robot’s motives might not be all that nefarious.
From Metropolis and 2001 to The Terminator and The Matrix , there’s certainly no shortage of cinematic touchstones in the subgenre — which makes it all the more surprising that Australian commercial director Grant Sputore is able to squeeze some fresh juice from that old fruit.
In the grand scheme of idiosyncratic robots guiding their human counterparts through futuristic isolation, Byrne’s Mother coaxes uneasy interpretations of the inherently false security of gender (as compared to the immediate distrust one might have for 2001’s Hal or the Kevin Spacey bot in Duncan Jones’ Moon ).
Not only is Alien an obvious touchstone for this sci-fi saga, but so too are The Terminator , Ex Machina , 10 Cloverfield Lane and Moon , among numerous other tales about solitary figures trapped in mysterious bunkers or facilities.
Like Moon or Monsters before it, I Am Mother primarily exists as small-budget sci-fi sizzle ahead of an eventual studio steak plated for its director, Grant Sputore.
Falling somewhere between the accessible entertainment of a YA blockbuster and the complexity of a low-budget indie like Moon , I Am Mother spares the complicated world-building and simply gives Rugaard and Swank plenty of interesting material.
There's 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Terminator , Duncan Jones' Moon , and on and on.
The human-machine relationship of “I Am Mother” is somewhat reminiscent of films like “Ex Machina,” where the machines become more than mere objects.
Not only is Alien an obvious touchstone for this sci-fi saga, but so too are The Terminator , Ex Machina , 10 Cloverfield Lane and Moon , among numerous other tales about solitary figures trapped in mysterious bunkers or facilities.
While some critics felt it was too derivative – especially of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina – the pleasure of science fiction is largely metatextual.
Netflix’s own Ex Machina.
Sputore creates a vibe similar to Ex Machina , a brilliant film where an artificial intelligence came between two human characters.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced I Am Mother (2019)
Themes Plot Characters
It's an argument we've been having about AI since the HAL 9000 attacked Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Netflix’s I Am Mother is a nifty sci-fi flick, even if it does borrow from about 150 other, better sci-fi movies (most recognizably 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mother can be both sensitive and dangerous; unlike HAL, she can unnervingly sprint through corridors at breakneck speed and get your pulse racing at the thought of what her metallic hands might do to a human in her path.
For contrast, the characters in the similarly claustrophobic 10 Cloverfield Lane were (fairly) normal people with lived experiences that they brought with them into John Goodman’s happy-fun-time bunker.
Not only is Alien an obvious touchstone for this sci-fi saga, but so too are The Terminator , Ex Machina , 10 Cloverfield Lane and Moon , among numerous other tales about solitary figures trapped in mysterious bunkers or facilities.
It’s the “robots with feelings” aspect of I, Robot crossed with the contained nature of 10 Cloverfield Lane — it just falls short of either.
She’s sensitive and overprotective and a tad peevish, a robot who speaks like a therapist and toggles through her built-in stereo to find out whether the infant prefers the soundtrack of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” or “Dumbo.”
An ensuing montage depicts Mother rearing this young girl, singing her to sleep with Dumbo ’s “Baby Mine,” giving her a stuffed rabbit, reading her The Wizard of Oz , and teaching her ballet and origami.
Mother cares deeply for Daughter, singing her "Baby Mine" — used more effectively here than in the recent "Dumbo" — and caring for her just like a flesh-and-blood mother.
Y mientras Madre cría de bebé a Hija, y ella crece, le canturrea -con la voz de Rose Byrne, la actriz de Damages- Baby Mine, de Dumbo (la original, de 1941).
It looks like “Arrival” but the scheme is out of “The Matrix,” we as a species have become chattel to metallic overlords.
From Metropolis and 2001 to The Terminator and The Matrix , there’s certainly no shortage of cinematic touchstones in the subgenre — which makes it all the more surprising that Australian commercial director Grant Sputore is able to squeeze some fresh juice from that old fruit.
That these feelings are probably closer on the movie moms spectrum to "Mommie Dearest" or "The Manchurian Candidate" than "Almost Famous" or "Terms of Endearment" doesn't diminish their legitimacy.
Eat your heart out, “Mommie Dearest”!
Whereas the first model is but a giant, barely mobile box, J2 is much more versatile, recalling, in look and feel, the AI in Grant Sputore’s I Am Mother, released in 2019.
She’s sensitive and overprotective and a tad peevish, a robot who speaks like a therapist and toggles through her built-in stereo to find out whether the infant prefers the soundtrack of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” or “Dumbo.”
Years pass, and eventually this human is a teenager (Danish actress Clara Rugaard, who voiced and sang the title role in the Danish version of Disney's animated feature Moana , and was in fact closer to 20 at the time I Am Mother was shot in Adelaide's film studio in late 2017).
That these feelings are probably closer on the movie moms spectrum to "Mommie Dearest" or "The Manchurian Candidate" than "Almost Famous" or "Terms of Endearment" doesn't diminish their legitimacy.
I Am Mother offers up ethical quandaries that’ve provided fodder for hundreds of better, more ambitious sci-fi thrillers (and even some of the worse ones), from Blade Runner to I Am Legend and pretty much everything in-between.
She plays a character known simply as Daughter, who is raised in an underground lab by her robot mommy, known as Mother (Rose Byrne, in the most effective voice performance since Scarlett Johansson in "Her") following an extinction-level event.
The dynamic of these three female personas instantly makes I Am Mother much more successful and interesting than say, Passengers (2016), which also features two humans locked in heteronormative duress within the confines of a ship which has assigned them predestined roles.
That these feelings are probably closer on the movie moms spectrum to "Mommie Dearest" or "The Manchurian Candidate" than "Almost Famous" or "Terms of Endearment" doesn't diminish their legitimacy.
That these feelings are probably closer on the movie moms spectrum to "Mommie Dearest" or "The Manchurian Candidate" than "Almost Famous" or "Terms of Endearment" doesn't diminish their legitimacy.
I Am Mother offers up ethical quandaries that’ve provided fodder for hundreds of better, more ambitious sci-fi thrillers (and even some of the worse ones), from Blade Runner to I Am Legend and pretty much everything in-between.
Is this world down the block from “Terminator Salvation”?