Mama
(Spain/Canada, 100 min.)
Dir. Andrés Muschietti; Writ. Niel Cross and Andrés
Muschietti & Barbara Muschietti
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan
Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse.
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| Jessica Chastain stars in Mama. Courtesy of the eOne Films. |
Toot toot! All aboard the Chastain Train! Jessica continues
her roll of impressive credits with Mama,
her first foray into the horror genre. Mama
is also Jessica’s first Canadian credit, as this Canuck-Spanish co-pro,
executive produced by horror master Guillermo del Toro, was shot in and around Toronto
and Quebec City. As a filmgoer who shamelessly champions Canadian content, but
is often sceptical of scary films, I’m pleased to announce that Mama is not the caboose of the Chastain
Train. It’s a highly entertaining film and a stylish, atmospheric entry into
the horror genre.
As the girls—two little Nells or inhabitants of Room—reveal
under the surveillance that continues while they’re under Annabel’s care, Mama
may not actually be the imagined presence their doctor (Daniel Kash) presumes her
to be. Less of a coping mechanism and more of a smother-mother, Mama is
watchful and protective of the girls as they become Annabel’s children. The
older girl, Victoria (Megan Charpentier), is adapting well to her new mama and
papa, but the younger child, Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) is a real wild child. Finding
an in-between-place amid the dead girl from The
Ring and Damian in The Omen,
Lilly is a creepy, bug-eyed, and sweet little girl. Unlike the recent onslaught of horror films have been possessed by
demon children since they scared audiences with The Ring, Mama makes the
horror a shared relationship between mother and child. Experiences should be for
the whole family.
Director/co-writer Andrés Muschietti, expanding his own
short film into feature length, makes a creepy and atmospheric haunted house
movie. Offering some chilling compositions with cinematographer Antonio
Riestra, Mama makes effective use of
place and space by revealing Mama’s presence in the film through simple
set-ups, most notably a divided hallway that brings the audience in the loop
and keeps Annabel in ignorance. Negative space hasn’t looked so creepy in a
while, depending on what one thought of Tom Hooper’s direction of Les Misérables.
Mama makes sparing
use of pop-out surprises and overbearing music cues, and instead relies on
creepy set-ups of children/Chastain in peril. The kids are partly the vessels
for the scares, too, so one is often on edge watching Annabel try to console
the kids since one never knows if they’re going to play Jekyll and Hyde and
take a bite out of her. Isabelle Nélisse, the younger sister of Sophie Nélisse
who won the Genie last year for Monsieur
Lazhar, is especially creepy for such a young performer. Children creep me
out regardless, but they’re especially hair-raising when they’re quiet, complacent,
and stuffing their mouths with slimy, squishy moths. Kids are gross.
Just as Mama gets
creative with the eerie kid vibe, so too does the film try something new with
the monstrous feminine. Mama reverses
the typical tropes of motherhood and monstrosity. Annabel isn’t carrying a
baby, nor does she particularly want to take on the burden of straightening out
a pair of feral children. Annabel has night terrors, but they’re not paired
with morning sickness or icky shots of menstrual blood. At the other end of the
family tree is Mama, who clings to motherhood like a mania. Like Annabel, Mama
has no idea how to raise a child, but her obsession for parenthood manifests
itself as a fatal possessiveness. Whereas expectant mothers like Rosemary might
see their baby as horrific manifestations, Annabel’s torment from Mama makes
her a better parent. Annabel, an unenthusiastic mother, ultimately finds herself
fighting for kids she didn’t want.
Mama is an odd sort herself. She is a twisted, if
unconvincingly rendered, ghoul that floats around the house like the love child
of spirits from The Grudge and A Nightmare Before Christmas. Played by
a man (Javier Botet), yet voiced by a woman (Jane Moffat, who also appears as
the girls’ Aunt Jean), Mama is an oddly androgynous Goth, much like Annabel
herself.
Annabel couldn’t be further from the classy, charismatically
girly persona that Chastain embodies on award season red carpets. Death becomes
her, too, since the punk rocker look suits Chastain surprisingly well—she’s the
motherfucker who found bin Laden, after all—and Mama showcases another facet of Chastain’s versatility. Scared
shitless, but confident and maternal at the same time, Annabel is the girl
percolating underneath Maya’s stoic veneer in Zero Dark Thirty.
Chastain’s characteristically strong turn in this spooky
film often makes Mama resemble del
Toro’s other films of past and present. Although Mama reworks conventions of deadly kids and deranged parents, Mama is also possessed by the ghost of
horror movie clichés. For every refreshing surprise in the film, there is a
tired sight gag, an old lady in the archives, or a character who wanders into
the woods in the middle of the night. Likewise, Mama comes to an abrupt climax that pulls everything together a bit
too conveniently, but then offers an unexpected twist to complicate the typical
resolution that sees the nuclear family triumph in the end.
Younger audiences will no doubt find the film scary—I hand a
group of underage screamers at my screening—and horror buffs will love the
stylish atmosphere of Mama. Mama is a
highly entertaining film even though one’s eyes roll one away from the edge of
the seat. The Chastain Train keeps on rolling too: it’s scary how this talented
actress stayed hidden for so long!
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Mama is currently playing in theatres everywhere.
