Frightfest Glasgow 2024: ‘Mom’ Review
Stars: Emily Hampshire, François Arnaud, Christian Convery, Tristan D. Lalla, Cat Lemieux, Erika Rosenbaum, Mariah Inger | Written by Adam O’Brien, Philip Kalin-Hajdu | Directed by Adam O’Brien
Meredith is a struggling mother abandoned by her family and partner after the appalling death of their newborn son. Alone in her house after separating, she becomes more and more isolated, unaware that the death of her baby has caused the birth of something far more sinister. An entity conceived from tragedy that is determined to make her relive over and over again the darkest moments of her existence and keep her family forever torn apart.
Mom is another heavy-handed look at post-partum depression wrapped up in the skin of a genre film – in this case a haunted house film. It’s something we’ve seen plenty of times before, and the filmmakers here don’t really try and stray away from cliche.
Visually Mom really looks the part, the muted tones as the film progresses helping to show the “life” draining out of the family. The film also visually closes in on its protagonist as the film goes on, the camera closing in on Meredith, reflecting the fact we’re seeing things from her perspective. Like her, we don’t see the bigger picture.
Speaking of focus, the film at times concentrates its focus on a stark abstract painting in the living room, which is ultimately a fantastic metaphor for the cracks appearing in both the family relationship and our protagonist’s psyche.
The appearance of silverfish (I think?!) throughout Mom suggested that there was something else going on in the film – but the filmmakers stuck to the mental breakdown angle to the bitter end. Perhaps blaming an external force was too cliched? After all the “evils” of humanity are far more scary than anything supernatural.
Kudos to Emily Hampshire, who manages to imbue her character with empathy even when it’s clear that, at times, we SHOULDN’T feel for Meredith… But you can’t help but feel for her, thanks to a combination of performance, direction and in particular sound design – which is one of this film high point, managing to both amp up the tension but also reflect the mental trauma Hampshire’s character is going through – the sound of a crying child grating on the audience as much as Meredith, really putting the audience firmly in her shoes.
Hampshire also manages to make the transition from struggling mother to broken parent feel real, the jump from confusion to delusion being a natural progression here. Thankfully the script keeps things real too – despite being a supernatural horror this film is very much grounded in reality. In fact, without any sort of horror or supernatural elements, Mom could’ve played out as a serious drama.
Mom concludes on a remarkably poignant note, almost turning the film’s story on its head, as the protective nature of motherhood tries (and tries hard) to win out in the end. Mom is nothing we haven’t seen before but it is very well made with a fantastic central performance that ultimately holds the film together.
***½ 3.5/5
Mom screened on Saturday, March 9th as part of this year’s Pigeon Shrine Glasgow Frightfest.
