Mother Mary

Let's be honest about what Mother Mary is before we pretend it's a mystery.

A24 has made a David Lowery psychological thriller about two women who used to be everything to each other, the long silence that followed, and what happens when the pop star calls the costume designer back into her orbit before a comeback show that might define or destroy her. Anne Hathaway plays Mary. Michaela Coel plays Sam. Their reunion is not warm. It is a reckoning. And the word 'psychosexual' in every press release is doing a lot of work.

I want to start with what is genuinely good here, because there is real craft. Lowery makes films that feel like memories you're not sure you had. A Ghost Story is one of the best films of the last decade. The Green Knight took Arthurian legend and turned it into something genuinely strange and philosophically serious. He does not make propaganda. He makes atmosphere. Mother Mary has two extraordinary lead performances. Hathaway sings her own songs on the soundtrack (composed with Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, with original contributions from FKA Twigs), and if 'Burial' is any indication of the album's emotional temperature, the music is genuinely haunting. Cinematography by Andrew Droz Palermo and Rina Yang. Sound design and score by Daniel Hart. This is a technically accomplished film by people who know exactly what they're doing.

It's also a film where the entire principal cast is women, the central dynamic is a psychosexual affair between two of them, Hunter Schafer plays a queer artist whose identity is woven into the story, and there isn't a meaningful male presence anywhere in the narrative. That's not an accident. It's the movie.

Michaela Coel is extraordinary on screen. Her work in I May Destroy You showed what she can do with material about trauma and desire. She's the kind of performer who makes silence mean something. Hathaway is playing a character type she has circled for years now: the famous woman whose public persona is armor. She's good at it. The two of them together are the reason to see this film if you're going to see it at all.

Sian Clifford (Fleabag) appears as Jade. Jessica Brown Findlay as Tessa. Alba Baptista, Kaia Gerber, FKA Twigs in undisclosed roles that the production has been deliberately vague about. The casting is entirely female and deeply intentional. Lowery built a world that excludes men at the structural level. The story doesn't need them. That's a creative choice, not an oversight.

For conservative viewers: this film scores woke, and it scores woke honestly. The psychosexual affair, the queer characterization, the all-female world, the normalization of non-traditional relationships as the film's primary emotional terrain. These are not hidden. The marketing is transparent. A24 knows exactly who they made this for. The audiences who find Lowery's work compelling will go. The audiences who don't, won't. No one is being deceived.

There is a sliver of traditional content here. The friendship between Mary and Sam, whatever it has become, carries the weight of a genuine bond. Long buried wounds is not a progressive concept. Estrangement and the impossibility of going back is a theme that cuts across ideology. The film does not lack emotional truth. It lacks ideological alignment with traditional values, which is a different thing.

At 112 minutes with Lowery's deliberate pacing and A24's theatrical rollout (limited April 17, wide April 24), this will be a critical darling. Critics who love slow, psychologically dense filmmaking about women in extremis will adore it. Conservative audiences have no reason to seek it out unless they're interested in the craft.

Bottom line: it scores what it scores. Respect the craft if you can. Skip it if you can't.

Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier

🔴 Woke Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Psychosexual Female-Female Affair as Central Narrative	4	Moderate	High	7.2
Queer Character Central to Story (Hunter Schafer as Hilda)	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Male-Free Narrative / All-Female World	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Pop Stardom as Female Self-Actualization / Comeback as Empowerment Arc	2	Moderate	Moderate	2
Non-Traditional Relationship Structures Normalized	3	Moderate	High	5.4
TOTAL WOKE				18.8

🟢 Traditional Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Female Friendship and Loyalty as Core Theme	3	High	High	3.78
Consequences of Ambition and Lost Relationships	2	Moderate	Moderate	2
Redemption Through Reconnection with the Past	3	High	Moderate	2.1
TOTAL TRADITIONAL				7.9

Score Margin: -11 WOKE