Mother Mary (2026)
Directed by David Lowery
Long-buried wounds rise to the surface when iconic pop star Mother Mary reunites with her estranged best friend and former costume designer Sam Anselm on the eve of her comeback performance.
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43 films that influenced Mother Mary
What critics say influenced Mother Mary
The Red Shoes is in here too, in fact most of the Powell and Pressburger oeuvre…
…one evoking an unholy mixture of Under the Skin and The Red Shoes…
Only by the end does he make his inspiration clear: this is his postmodern riff on Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes. Both films concern themselves with the madness and physical toll that comes with great performance, and how transcendence is its own reward.
Mother Mary’s flashes of lurid red and artistic obsession evoke The Red Shoes…
Production and costume design is tactile and textured, the sensuous, balletic chiffon-spirit itself calling to mind several cultural touchstones from Peter Strickland’s In Fabric to Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of A Lady On Fire and even Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes.
This is most beautifully detailed in a sequence that recalls the dream ballet in Powell and Pressburger’s artistic portrait, The Red Shoes.
Hay algo en ella, estilística y temáticamente, de 'Vox Lux' (2018) y de 'Smile 2' (2024).
From Vox Lux to Trap to Smile 2, this decade has seen a mini-boom in horror (and horror-adjacent) films centered around pop stars.
…films like the Suspiria remake, Trap, Smile 2, A Star is Born and Vox Lux all seem to gain energy from our fascination with women-on-stage in the Taylor Swift/Chappell Roan/Sabrina Carpenter era…
While on the surface the film may appear to be joining the ranks of "Vox Lux," "Trap," and "Smile 2" in its askew look at pop stardom…
“Mother Mary” borrows a lot of elements from other movies: “Black Swan” (2010), “Suspiria” (2019), “Talk to Me” (2022), “Smile 2” (2024).
Smile 2 inventively choosing to rehash the plotline of its first outing with a world-famous pop star falling under the same curse.
Hay algo en ella, estilística y temáticamente, de 'Vox Lux' (2018) y de 'Smile 2' (2024).
From Vox Lux to Trap to Smile 2, this decade has seen a mini-boom in horror (and horror-adjacent) films centered around pop stars.
Contrary to what the Internet may tell you, Mother Mary is very much not Vox Lux (2018).
…films like the Suspiria remake, Trap, Smile 2, A Star is Born and Vox Lux all seem to gain energy from our fascination with women-on-stage in the Taylor Swift/Chappell Roan/Sabrina Carpenter era…
While on the surface the film may appear to be joining the ranks of "Vox Lux," "Trap," and "Smile 2" in its askew look at pop stardom…
Like Brady Corbet did with Natalie Portman’s Celeste in Vox Lux, Lowery crafts Anne Hathaway’s Mary as a larger-than-life pop figure who could seamlessly exist alongside today’s biggest stars.
Half ghost story (think the first half of Peter Strickland’s In Fabric) and half play…
In Fabric and Phantom Thread both played with similar ideas…
It would appear that writer/director David Lowery ("A Ghost Story," "The Green Knight") has watched Peter Strickland's "In Fabric," a fellow A24 release, one time too many.
Production and costume design is tactile and textured, the sensuous, balletic chiffon-spirit itself calling to mind several cultural touchstones from Peter Strickland’s In Fabric to Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of A Lady On Fire and even Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes.
…modern giallo like In Fabric…
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Lowery’s missing connective tissue from previous features like A Ghost Story is that the visual and captivating atmosphere is there, but the story is too emotionally hollow to really grasp onto what’s being said.
…it continues his fascination with spectral ambiguity, first explored in A Ghost Story…
He’s a filmmaker who has spent the last decade bouncing between haunting, minimalist gems like A Ghost Story and the high-gloss machinery of live-action Disney remakes like Pete’s Dragon or Peter Pan and Wendy.
The closest film Lowery has made to “Mother Mary” is his “A Ghost Story” (2017), which matches this film for its audacity, character-driven narratives and staging that straddles the possibilities of theater and cinema.
See, for instance, the infamous "Rooney Mara eating pie" scene from "A Ghost Story," or the use of 14th-century-stylized dialogue from "The Green Knight."
As with A Ghost Story, Mother Mary deals in the existential themes of time, identity and connection – although this latest work is a far more verbose, pointed experience.
Lowery’s previous films, such as The Green Knight and A Ghost Story, tapped into a far more fantasy-oriented surrealism than what’s explored within Mother Mary…
Writer/director David Lowery, whose previous films include the mysterious GREEN KNIGHT, weaves similar dreamlike material here for MOTHER MARY.
On the surface, his first theatrical film since 2021’s The Green Knight seems like quite a departure…
Mother Mary and The Green Knight stand as polar opposite films in their energy and scope. The Green Knight feels incredibly masculine, ancient, and vast – spanning years, many miles, and a menagerie of other-worldly characters. Mother Mary is entrenched in femininity, modernity, and is shockingly bare: the kind of film that would translate to a stage play with ease, using only a few simple sets. But between them both I felt a connective tissue. They both feel, at their bones, like folklore tales. They dip into horror and surreal atmospheres; they’re equally moody, compelling mixtures of warm character moments and steely chill. In giving us something that feels spiritually related to The Green Knight but also lives on another end of an invisible spectrum, Lowery has created something entirely new.
The same goes for The Green Knight…
See, for instance, the infamous "Rooney Mara eating pie" scene from "A Ghost Story," or the use of 14th-century-stylized dialogue from "The Green Knight."
…but even before that in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Pete’s Dragon…
…and his Robert Redford remake of Pete’s Dragon…
…especially given how movies like The Green Knight, Peter Pan & Wendy, and Pete’s Dragon were based on established properties but circumvented expectations…
The 2016 remake of “Pete’s Dragon” is also from Lowery and easily one of the best, most refreshingly different of the live action Disney remakes, which retells the tale without simply xeroxing the original scene-for-scene (like most of the other live action Mouse House remakes).
…who makes idiosyncratic family movies for Disney (Peter Pan and Wendy, Pete’s Dragon)…
He’s a filmmaker who has spent the last decade bouncing between haunting, minimalist gems like A Ghost Story and the high-gloss machinery of live-action Disney remakes like Pete’s Dragon or Peter Pan and Wendy.
Lowery’s earliest works, St. Nick and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, were deeply rural works so caked in Texas dirt you could feel grime underneath your fingernails.
…but even before that in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Pete’s Dragon…
The writer-director may have made a name for himself with scrappy indies (“Ain’t them Bodies Saints”) and esoteric genre experiments (“A Ghost Story”), but he built a career for himself with the likes of “Pete’s Dragon” and “Peter Pan & Wendy”…
Lowery’s fans will appreciate another singular addition to an eclectic canon, which includes the likes of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013), Pete’s Dragon (2016), A Ghost Story (2017) and The Old Man And The Gun (2018).
…rather than his Disney concoctions like Peter Pan & Wendy…
…especially given how movies like The Green Knight, Peter Pan & Wendy, and Pete’s Dragon were based on established properties but circumvented expectations…
He’s a filmmaker who has spent the last decade bouncing between haunting, minimalist gems like A Ghost Story and the high-gloss machinery of live-action Disney remakes like Pete’s Dragon or Peter Pan and Wendy.
…who makes idiosyncratic family movies for Disney (Peter Pan and Wendy, Pete’s Dragon)…
Mother Mary, writer-director David Lowery’s follow-up to 2023’s Peter Pan & Wendy, may be the most resplendent example of this genre…
…he built a career for himself with the likes of “Pete’s Dragon” and “Peter Pan & Wendy” — with movies that rescued something poignant and real from the creative abyss that is Disney’s live-action remake culture…
Lowery’s earliest works, St. Nick and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, were deeply rural works so caked in Texas dirt you could feel grime underneath your fingernails.
From Vox Lux to Trap to Smile 2, this decade has seen a mini-boom in horror (and horror-adjacent) films centered around pop stars.
Sometimes when a fake pop star is featured in a film it can be a bit over the top (I felt this way about Lady Raven in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap (2024)) rather than something that puts you into the character’s mind as a performer.
…films like the Suspiria remake, Trap, Smile 2, A Star is Born and Vox Lux all seem to gain energy from our fascination with women-on-stage in the Taylor Swift/Chappell Roan/Sabrina Carpenter era…
While on the surface the film may appear to be joining the ranks of "Vox Lux," "Trap," and "Smile 2" in its askew look at pop stardom…
…much like M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, there’s a whole EP from the fictional performer that can be heard in the film (Mother Mary: Greatest Hits)…
…that Black Swan was the template…
“Mother Mary” borrows a lot of elements from other movies: “Black Swan” (2010), “Suspiria” (2019), “Talk to Me” (2022), “Smile 2” (2024).
…the tightly wound creator–muse dynamic of “Phantom Thread” and the self-destructive unraveling of performance we’ve seen in “Black Swan.”
In the first half, Anne Hathaway demonstrates dance choreography for her show that is halfway between a carefully planned routine and the notorious subway freakout by Isabelle Adjani’s character in Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession.
There’s also a moment where has to perform a dance number with no music that gives Isabelle Adjani vibes from Possession.
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In Fabric and Phantom Thread both played with similar ideas…
…the tightly wound creator–muse dynamic of “Phantom Thread” and the self-destructive unraveling of performance we’ve seen in “Black Swan.”
…films like the Suspiria remake, Trap, Smile 2, A Star is Born and Vox Lux all seem to gain energy from our fascination with women-on-stage in the Taylor Swift/Chappell Roan/Sabrina Carpenter era…
…dance sequences that rival the ones in Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria…