The “pop star thriller” has transformed from a gimmick to a full-fledged subgenre over the last few years. Trap, Smile 2, and Hurry Up Tomorrow all showed the darker side of musical fame from different angles, but none delved into the loneliness of performance stardom seen in movies like Black Swan or Vox Lux.
That looks like it’s about to change. Mother Mary, the next movie from Green Knight director David Lowery, focuses on the tense relationship between a pop star and a fashion designer, and it includes an all-star cast and a surprising supernatural twist. Check out the trailer below:
The movie stars Anne Hathaway as Mother Mary, a world-famous pop star, and Michaela Coel as Sam, a fashion designer she turns to for a dress. It seems like a drama at first, but the trailer soon reveals something else as Sam draws a chalk circle on the floor. “You think there’s something inside you?” she asks. “Let’s cast her out. Together.”
That suggests a supernatural twist, but as the movie’s tagline claims, this is not a ghost story — a reference to Lowery’s 2017 film, A Ghost Story. So then what is it? The quick shots towards the end of the trailer suggest something a bit more surreal, like The Substance or Perfect Blue, so perhaps there’s no logical explanation for the supernatural element; it just is.
But perhaps there’s something evil afoot. We see Mary at the end of her rope: she seeks out Sam because she “had nowhere else to go,” and then there’s a barrage of religious imagery, including a crown of thorns and a stigmata-like wound on a hand. Could Mary’s existential crisis be religious in nature? Could she even be possessed, necessitating the occult-like behavior we see in the trailer?
Mother Mary has told us what it’s not: it’s not a ghost story or a love story. But its description of what it is is no clearer. It’s a prayer, a song, a dress, a communion, a betrayal, a sacrifice, a rebirth. Whatever it is, it looks like a good time at the movies.
