Here’s how I knew David Lowery was a special director. Disney’s plan of rereleasing live action versions of their films has decided the films don’t have to look good or say anything different or interesting. As such, all of them have been crap…except one. The one David Lowery did: Pete’s Dragon, just a beautiful story about a kid and a dragon in the Pacific Northwest. So, making a small budget two hander about the biggest pop star in the world? Child’s play for one of our great living moviemakers.
After a horrible incident at her last live show, Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) decides it’s time to get back out there and perform again. However, the dress designed by her team (among them Sian Clifford, Kaia Gerber, Jessica Brown Findlay) just isn’t feeling right. Desperate, Mary flees to England where her previous designer Sam Anslem (Michaela Coel) is prepping for her own art show. Sam agrees to Mary’s begging for a new dress in a couple days, under one condition: Mary agrees to whatever Sam wants to make, no questions asked.
I’ve said this before, but Mother Mary further cements it: great David Lowery films turn into some sort of fable that can be told, generation to generation. This one doesn’t start that way: it’s just a two hander in Sam’s barn between Mary and her former costume designer. There’s only so many places you can go inside a barn. But as the two go deeper and deeper into their relationship, the growing intimacy simultaneously also has Lowery make a bold choice. We’re still in the barn, but the scope of the story starts to transcend space, and time. That simple request of a pop star desiring a dress for her next show now becomes…something else. And not just one thing, but MANY things: a study of a break up, toxic relationships, emotional trauma, deep connection, transference, and quantum relationship theory. These choices might lose some people, but those who go with it will have lasting impressions from Mother Mary, as well as a renewed love for its director David Lowery.
Oh, and of course, the two leads. Lowery is hinging a lot on Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel taking this script and channeling the deep emotions necessary for the story to work. Thankfully, the trio are fully onboard the pop train. Hathaway shows off her incredible range in this one: pop star Mother can belt the hell out of her Charli XCX hits and look as majestic, mysterious, yet empathetic as possible to her adoring fans when she’s onstage with those gigantic crowns. But in Sam’s presence, any bit of that persona is stripped away: off stage Mary has washed away every artifice and laid herself bare, begging the person who knew her best to help find her way back to the light again. There’s a musicless choregraphed routine Hathaway executes in here that’s better than anything she did in her Oscar winning performance with the emotions she wordlessly pours into her character. Responding to all of this is Michaela Coel. She’s sort of like her character in The Christophers, exuding newfound confidence and understanding across from pure insecurity. Except she’s got more to say in this one, driving the action, so to speak. She’s not just a blank slate Anne Hathaway is bouncing off of: she’s deep listening, in both an effort to accomplish her task, and to help Mary discover pieces about herself she hasn’t fully uncovered yet. The two of them are awesome together, bringing everything the script needs, and even a little more, insinuating perhaps deeper connections than even the story thinks the pair might have had.
After watching Mother Mary, I did wonder now about other costume designers. Like, does Sabrina Carpenter have flirtatious meetings with hers to get those cute suggestive outfits? Does John Legend have a good cry with his so the sweet sadness comes out of those tuxes. Does Morgan Wallen…shoot his to feel like the big man? I guess we’ll never know, though thanks to David Lowery, I definitely want to.