The first thing we hear in Mother Mary is the sound of Michaela Coel’s voice. She anticipates Mother Mary’s arrival and warns us that this story is cursed. Anyone who has been watching television for the last decade could recognize the richness and clarity of her tone. But now, on the big screen, we get to hear it louder than it’s ever been. Writer-director David Lowery sets the stage for Mother Mary, but it’s Coel—playing the jilted, acidic fashion designer Sam Anselm—who steps out center stage. Coel dominates the screen, keeping all our senses at attention; though she has been in films before, Mother Mary feels like her grand entrance. Living on a large, dark property in England, Sam has banished herself from society. All she has is her work, loyal assistant Hilda (Hunter Schafer), and enough fire in her soul to chase off creeping feelings of ennui. Sam is also, crucially, a woman haunted by love, her passion fueled by sustained, aching heartbreak.
And what’s more dramatic than breaking up with a world-famous pop star? Adding insult to injury, their breakup is unknown to the world. So when Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) arrives at Sam’s house asking for a dress, she has every reason to turn her former love away. Instead, Sam is casually cruel, delivering one verbal lashing after another with a bitter smile on her face. Mother Mary takes her lumps, alternating between apologetic overtures and small, intense emotional breakdowns.
There is not a single man in the main cast of Mother Mary. Men can be seen in the concert crowds during performances, but it’s otherwise as if they don’t exist. Lowery’s newest ghost story only involves women—including Kaia Gerber, Jessica Brown Findlay, Alba Baptista, Atheena Frizzell, Isaura Barbe-Brown, Sian Clifford, and pop star FKA Twigs. But at its heart, Mother Mary is a two-hander between Coel and Hathaway, captured with patience and intimacy. Much like his previous experiment, A Ghost Story, Mother Mary captures emotional distance through metaphysical means. This time, the ghost is like a red string keeping these women connected after a decade apart.
Hathaway plays Mother Mary as a figure of divine sadness in heels, with long, flowing, bone-straight hair and a variety of halo-shaped headpieces. With elements of Madonna, Lana Del Rey, and a little Mitski, Mother Mary suggests the idea of a pop star before a fully realized character. But her emotional isolation and depression feel real—Hathaway doesn’t know how to play a false note. She instead makes Mary’s emptiness the point. Mother Mary comes alive when she’s onstage, but off she has no idea who she is. She returns to Sam hoping to find an answer. Many times, Sam laments that her old friend has always made her do all the work. Yet Mother Mary has nothing to give but voice and presence.
Though it’s never spoken, the queerness of Lowery’s film is unmistakable. While these are two women who love each other, a happy ending eludes them. Their reunion is bittersweet, driven by how much they need each other in a way that borders on obsession. There are some couples who break up because the love is gone. But sometimes it’s even more painful when the love is still there, powerful enough to destroy them both if they ever fully surrender to it. The grief that comes with knowing this lives within both of them. And in the end, they must figure out what to do with it.
Mother Mary opens in theaters on Friday, April 17.