2020 ‘MOTHER マザー’ Directed by Tatsushi Ōmori
Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.
Mazā, Mother, Mother Mazâ, MOTHER マザー：2020, Μητέρα, Maternidad, Lazos de sangre, Le lien du sang, Le Lien du sang, האם, Mother: Eltorzult szeretet, 마더, Laço Materno, แม่, Mẫu Tử Lầm Lỡ, 母亲, 母子逆緣, 母子情劫
JapanPG12
Denmark
Brazil16
Germany12
Brazil
Denmark
Germany
Japan
Not to be confused with:
Mother (2009)
mother! (2017)
Mother (2017)
Mother (1996)
Mother (1926)
Mother (2019)
Mother (1952)
Mother (2016)
Mother (1990)
Mother (1991)
This movie had potential to be great, but I feel it was let down by lack of character development, relying on general villainy to carry it's impact. No one changes throughout the film, maintaining the same emotional standpoints from start to finish. Though this works for the mother's character (especially when it comes to her abusive ex partner), Shuhei should've had some internal change. I'm not specifically saying that he should've stood up to her, I just wanted more from his arc and get that satisfying ending of him becoming a better man. But alas,…
Mother answers back to Shoplifter's "Is giving birth automatically makes you a mother?" as it shows that despite how toxic the parental bond is, there are children who can't seem to cut out the affection they have towards their parents. Also, rather than Shoplifters, this one felt much closer to Koreeda's Nobody Knows which was also based on a true story.
I didn't realise that Tatsushi Oomori's scripts could get any more complex after his film The Ravine of Goodbye back in 2013 about a rape victim living with her perpetrator, but I was wrong! This viscerally devastating and crushing film details years of compounded abuse against a boy by his mother and how he chooses to stand by her selfish and cruel ways to the end. You could commend every one of the actors (children and all) for their performance in this film, and I think that comes down to the director's guidance. The score is ominous and tense and sprinkled into the movie at defining moments where history repeats itself: and the WORST MOTHER IN HISTORY manipulates, uses and…
Mother is a hard watch of constant abusive, irresponsible and manipulative relationship between a mother and son.
Masami Nagasawa and Daiken Okudaira give very strong performances but I feel like the whole movie is solely depending on two of them. Nothing really stand out except for the performances.
The Netflix algorithm gets me. Mother is kind of like Shoplifters if it stripped the movie of any Koreeda romanticism and replaced it with a layer of Sion Sono's true crime cynicism. It's a miserable tale of a boy whose life is entirely consumed by his abusive, psychopathic mother, who basically uses him to elicit sympathy from people who have had enough of her shit. And when that stops working, she pushes him to do even worse things.
The length is tough, since this is largely unpalatable material to begin with. Sitting through two hours of this kid suffering the cruelty of his mother will be a test that a lot of people will likely not want to sit through.…
I wish the sociopath mother had some character development, but then if you look at it, that's the point. The life of a sociopath and everyone he/she is influencing is nothing but an endless cycle spiraling down the rabbit hole.
