Filmmakers often express frustrations about the genre labels put on their work by studio marketing, the media, and even their fans. Perhaps this is why David Lowery’s tagline for his latest film, Mother Mary, focuses on what it’s not. “This is not a ghost story. This is not a love story.” Maybe he doesn’t want his rapturous work described in such simple terms.
But here’s the thing. It is a ghost story. It is a love story. It’s also more.
Written and directed by Lowery (The Green Knight, A Ghost Story), Mother Mary plunges its audience into the unreal world of the eponymous pop icon, played by Anne Hathaway. Wearing a ferociously cinched body suit with gothic flair and religious iconography like her signature halos, Mother Mary is giving Lady Gaga. But it’s not just the iconography. A stunning long take meant to show how Mother Mary must parade from one show to the next to the next without respite recalls the Gaga meme of “No sleep, bus, club, another club, ‘nother club, plane, next place, no sleep.”
However, Mother Mary’s songs are written by Charli xcx, Jack Antonoff, and FKA twigs, who also has a small but pivotal role in the film. The music they bring is otherworldly, evoking not just Mother Mary’s power over her audience, but also the paranormal darkness that plagues her wherever she goes.
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