Filmmaker David Lowery has been quietly building a reputation as one of the more fascinating voices in the horror and fantasy movie world. Between the calm serenity of A Ghost Story and the lush beauty of The Green Knight, he’s proven himself to be a talented filmmaker, and the darkness that he injected into Disney’s live-action reimagining of Pete’s Dragon showed that he can work with the big boys, too. Now, Lowery’s newest film, the understated Mother Mary, with its musical horror theme, continues his experimentation.
Mother Mary stars Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada 2) as the titular Mother Mary, a pop star who was forced to take an unplanned hiatus after a concert mishap. Now, she’s planning her comeback and decides to ask her estranged best friend/ex-costumer, Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel from I May Destroy You), to design a dress for the occasion. Sam reluctantly agrees, and as the two work on the dress, old feelings are stirred up. Soon enough, the pair realizes that it may be more than just this project that has brought them back together.
As a cinematic experience, Mother Mary is probably the most David Lowery film that David Lowery has ever made. Its pacing is slow and erratic, its imagery is beautiful, and its plot barely holds together. And all this is by design as part of Lowery’s fever-dream, surreal vision. Things take about half the movie to get rolling, with the first half full of spoken (although completely necessary) exposition that lays out the history and conflict between the characters. But once things get going, the audience is more than ready for something to happen.
Mother Mary is basically a two-woman show, with Hathaway and Coel carrying the lion’s share of the work. Hunter Schafer (Euphoria) pops in and out as Sam’s assistant, and there are other members of Mother Mary’s entourage that show up in flashbacks and dream sequences, but for most of the movie, it’s just Anne and Michaela. And they are both up for the task, not only turning in near-perfect performances on their own but playing off of each other wonderfully to capture the uncomfortable tension and love between the two women.
The action in Mother Mary unfolds much like that of a stage play. Even the transitions to flashbacks and concert scenes are constructed with lighting and stage blocking, with the characters seemingly entering a different time and place just by moving to a different area of the set. The visual effects are sparse-yet-essential, and even those could probably have been achieved with a clever stage tech team. Mother Mary is brilliant in its simplicity.
As for the horror aspects of Mother Mary, well, results will vary. It’s not particularly scary, but it does have an overall creepy, paranormal vibe to it. It’s more atmosphere than anything else, so those looking for cheap jump scares or over-the-top gore will be disappointed. That’s not what Lowery set out to do here, and it’s not at all what he does. It’s more of an all-encompassing dread-building exercise in suspense.
Lowery was said to have drawn influence from two main places for Mother Mary – the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Taylor Swift’s concert tours. And that’s basically what we get with Mother Mary. It’s like Taylor Swift walking into a supernatural thriller. That’s the kind of controlled energy that the movie exudes.
Just as one would expect, the music is an important ingredient in Mother Mary. Songs for the soundtrack were written by uber-producer Jack Antonoff along with pop stars Charlie XCX and FKA Twigs (the latter of whom actually makes an appearance in the film as a medium). Herself a singer, Anne Hathaway performed her own vocals, and the resulting music fits right into the same mold as other fake-pop singers of the horror/suspense genre such as Lady Raven from Trap or Skye Riley from Smile 2. It’s all dance pop perfection. Lowery wouldn’t have settled for anything less.
David Lowery’s movies are not for everyone, and there are those who won’t be able to take the slow-burn, almost glacial pacing of Mother Mary. Still others will question where the film ultimately winds up and wonder whether the long-winded journey was worth it. But those who know will know. Mother Mary is David Lowery being David Lowery.
GRADE: B
Rating: R for language and some violent content
Runtime: 1 hour 52 minutes
Release Date: April 24, 2026
Studio: A24
