YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER (2021)

Studio:     Magnet Releasing
Director:    Kate Dolan
Writer:     Kate Dolan
Producer:  Deirdre Levins
Stars:     Hazel Doupe, Carolyn Bracken, Jordanne Jones, Katie White, Florence Adebambo, Paul Reid, Ingrid Craigie

Review Score:

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Summary:

A teenage girl learns a shocking family secret after her mother goes missing, but later returns having seemingly transformed.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Teenage misfit Char Delaney, who has a burn scar on her cheek, wakes from a nightmare of her grandmother Rita taking her into a forest as a baby. In the vision, Rita invokes an occult ritual while fire surrounds Char.

Having woken up late, Char reluctantly asks her emotionally troubled mother Angela to drive her to school. Angela enters a distracted trance and nearly hits a horse in the road until Char jerks the steering wheel. Angela cryptically says, “I can’t do this anymore.” Char leaves in frustration. After school, Char finds the car abandoned and her mother missing.

After reporting Angela as a missing person, Char and her uncle Aaron separately canvas their North Dublin neighborhood for clues. Bullies led by classmates Suzanne O’Connell, Kelly, and Amanda harass Char in an alleyway.

Rita gives Char a handmade bundle of sage and twigs. Rita tells Char that the ward is for her protection.

Char wakes from a nightmare of her mother with a disfigured face to find Angela returned home by breaking the front door’s lock. The next day, Aaron picks up prescription pills for Angela’s treatment, but he sends Char to retrieve the lithium he forgot.

Feeling sympathetic after hearing about Char’s missing mother, Suzanne apologizes for her bullying when she spots Char walking home from the pharmacy. Having seen their interaction, Suzanne’s father warns Suzanne to stay away from Char’s family.

Char is pleased when she comes home to find her mother wearing a dress, making dinner, and dancing. Rita pretends to overturn the pot of Angela’s cooking on accident. Angela stares daggers at Rita over dinner. She also behaves curtly toward her brother when Aaron suggests Angela shouldn’t leave the house. Later that night, Char spies Angela contorting and shoving her forearm down her throat before vomiting.

Angela uses crushed lithium pills to poison her brother’s tea.

Kelly leads the alleyway bullies in terrorizing Char with an aerosol can and lighter. Angela rescues her daughter by violently shoving Kelly to the ground.

Char asks her mother where she went when she disappeared, but Angela responds that she can’t tell Char yet. Angela spontaneously wades into a nearby river and submerges herself. Char gets pulled underwater when she goes in after her mother.

Char and Angela return home to find Aaron convulsing on the lawn. At the hospital, Rita learns Aaron was poisoned with lithium. Rita burns a protective ward at Aaron’s bedside.

Worried by her mother’s lack of concern for Aaron, Char pleads with Angela to stop dancing in their living room. Angela’s dancing turns into a violent physical fit. Char locks herself in her bedroom to protect herself.

On a school field trip, Angela learns about bonfire traditions for the upcoming Halloween holiday. A film on folklore also mentions how bodies of water can be portals for fairy folk to enter the human world and vice versa.

Kelly confronts Char over her mother bruising Kelly’s eye. Kelly taunts Char by saying her family tried to burn her in a fire when she was born. Suzanne compels Kelly to back down.

Char and Suzanne begin bonding. Suzanne reveals that her own mother wandered away when she was little and drowned in the river. Char confesses that Angela frightens her.

Char invites Suzanne to her house for dinner. When Rita learns who Suzanne’s mother was, she tries to send Suzanne home. Char refuses. Rita asks to speak to Char alone.

Suzanne goes into the kitchen to give Char and Rita privacy. The dripping ghost of Suzanne’s dead mother comes up behind Suzanne and whispers, “Leave.” Suzanne flees from the house.

Rita finally tells Char that when she was a baby, Angela took her out for a walk and returned home without her. Angela claimed she couldn’t remember where she went. The family later found Char by the river, but she had actually been replaced by a changeling. In order to expel a changeling, it has to be brought to a fire, which is why Rita took Char into the woods. Rita warns Char that she was taken by vengeful entities, and they’ve come back to reclaim her. She also warns that a changeling has now replaced Angela, and if they don’t get Angela back, “they” will try to take Char too.

While explaining that they need to take her to a fire to see if she turns, Rita shows Char that she tied Angela to a bed. Concerned, Char frees her mother despite Rita’s protests. Char sees that Angela has a disfigured mirror reflection. Angela locks Char in the bedroom while she attacks Rita.

Char eventually emerges to find her grandmother dead and Angela shedding hair and teeth. Suzanne comes to the house. Although Angela angrily forbids her to leave, Char flees in fright with Suzanne. At Suzanne’s house, Char explains what is happening as the two girls plot to lure Angela to a Halloween bonfire.

Still undergoing her metamorphosis, Angela terrifies children as she walks through the neighborhood during its Halloween celebration. Char confronts Angela. A chase ensues. Char leads Angela back to the woodpile she prepared with Suzanne, but finds Kelly and the bullies waiting for her. The bullies force Char into the woodpile as Kelly prepares to torch it with her aerosol can and lighter.

Angela’s arrival frightens away the bullies. Angela gets inside the woodpile with Char. Angela and Char embrace as Angela promises to bring Char to where her real mother is.

Suzanne returns to toss Char the lighter and aerosol can. Char uses the items to start the bonfire. Suzanne pulls Char out of the blaze as Angela goes up in flames with the woodpile.

Police do not find a body in the rubble. The real Angela ultimately returns home. Some time later, Aaron helps his sister and niece pack up their house. Char makes one of Rita’s wards and gives it to Angela for protection.

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Review:

Prolific critics can’t stand repeating themselves. That’s why we’re constantly trying to come up with new ways to say the same things. Every time I type “slow burn,” for instance, I routinely think, “This again? There has to be a better way!” like I’m a contestant pitching on “Shark Tank.”

The catch is, those same old, same old phrases just plain work because everyone understands what they mean. It’s why I defend the semi-controversial use of “elevated horror.” Offended people seem to think “elevated” intends to disparage everything it’s being elevated above, except that’s not really the case. When someone says “elevated horror,” that term immediately tells you you’re in arthouse A24 territory as opposed to killer clowns terrorizing teens at a slumber party. Certain phrases simply do the trick far better and far faster than an unnecessarily long description ever could.

Here’s another example. When you hear “slow-burn Irish spooker,” what comes to mind? Those few words should suggest an emphasis on atmosphere over action, slowly smoldering dread, long stretches of ponderous silence, gloomy settings colored grey from overcast skies, haunting music where piano keys echo eerily, cryptic dialogue, a creeping camera keen on arms-length angles framed from distant rooms to partially obscure voyeur views with door frames, performances primarily made out of sullen faces and saddened stares, and of course, boggy woods, pagan bonfires, and Celtic folklore. That elaboration describes countless suspense films from the Emerald Isle, but in this instance, it specifically covers “You Are Not My Mother.”

Char has all the characteristics of a teenage social outcast. Her academic excellence earns the ire of bullying classmates. She tells her teacher she has a friend to sit with, yet she still eats a sad homemade sandwich alone in the cafeteria. When her face isn’t pointed down, a scar can be seen on Char’s cheek that she claims is an unusual birthmark. Neighborhood whispers gossip that it’s actually a sick reminder of how her family supposedly tried to burn Char (subtle nickname, innit?) shortly after her birth.

Char doesn’t have it any easier at home. Her grandmother Rita treats Char just fine, but she’s not the problem. It’s Char’s mother Angela. Emotionally distant and often distracted, Angela can barely be bothered with anything, which explains why Char is reticent to ask her for a ride to school. Char asks anyway, and nearly ends up in an accident when Angela goes into a trance, forcing Char to suddenly jerk the steering wheel to avoid a horse in the middle of the road. All Angela has to say for herself afterward is, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Char’s frustration with her disengaged mother turns to frightened fear when Angela suddenly goes missing. She isn’t gone long though. Char’s regularly scheduled nightmare of mom wearing a disfigured face gets interrupted one evening by the front door being broken open. Angela returned just as inexplicably as she disappeared. But where did she go and was it really her who came back?

That latter question becomes a more urgent issue than the former when Angela’s behavior begins growing increasingly bizarre. At first, Char loves her mum’s newfound fashion sense, desire to make dinner, and spontaneously smiling dances. Those three things soon turn into shedding hair and teeth, putting poison in a person’s tea, and entering into violent physical fits. What’s worse, unraveling the mystery behind Angela’s metamorphosis will uncover the shocking truth about Char’s past, as well as the painful price the family now has to pay in the present.

By now, you’re heard more than enough to know if “You Are Not My Mother” sounds like something that sends a ball up your alley. I’ve been speaking about it a bit offhandedly, but I genuinely mean no disrespect toward the movie or toward writer/director Kate Dolan. On the contrary, Dolan carefully crafts a fine fable about fractured family tethers and, despite a muted tone that prioritizes themes over tangible terrors, Char’s arc stays quietly compelling even though not a whole lot happens. Patiently paced though the movie may be, Dolan exhibits a strong sense for maximizing Spartan style to enhance smart storytelling.

At the same time, it’s difficult to get overly excited about another supernatural chiller topped off with typical tropes and familiar fiction. Dolan’s script would have benefited from a judicious revision to solidify each person’s purpose in the plot. Char doesn’t need multiple bullies any more than those bullies need to have multiple changes of heart. Some threads have frayed ends too, like a vague relationship with a concerned mentor that doesn’t do much beyond confirm how Char willfully ignores external offers of help in addition to repeated warning signs at home.

In its current, and obviously only incarnation, “You Are Not My Mother” does an admirable, albeit average, job as a festival favorite, comfortably lingering in a limbo between traditional and elevated horror. There’s that pesky term again. I could have simply left it at “slow-burn Irish spooker” since that undoubtedly told you everything you needed to know.

Review Score: 55

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