Mother Mary is not a ghost story. But it’s a story about being haunted—by love, by art, by the versions of ourselves we leave behind.
Written by Mariane Tremblay
From the very first image of Anne Hathaway that I saw as Mother Mary, I was obsessed. Draped in gold, a halo crowning her head, she didn’t simply look like a pop star—she looked like someone to be worshipped. Someone untouchable. Divine even. Then I read the premise: "Long-buried wounds rise to the surface when iconic pop star Mother Mary reunites with her estranged best friend and former costume designer Sam Anselm on the eve of her comeback performance," accompanied by the tagline "This is not a ghost story." How could one not be intrigued? Some movies pull you in, and you don’t even know why, and Mother Mary is one of them. As more images were revealed—posters, teasers, trailers, and the first single, written by Charli xcx, Jack Antonoff, and Anne Hathaway—I was a woman possessed. I couldn’t listen to anything else. I couldn't think of anything else. With that, my anticipation for this film kept growing, and thankfully, it did not disappoint.
Directed by David Lowery (A Ghost Story), the film unfolds like a fever dream. Captivating from the very first minute to the very last. I didn't want it to end. It's not just about what is said or left unsaid, but about what remains: in the silences, in the glances, in the spaces where words fail. Some connections can't be explained; they're felt. And the energy of this film is felt; it cannot be understood or explained. You have to let yourself be carried away in this melodrama for 112 minutes.
At its centre is Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway), a global pop star on the brink of collapse. Beneath the spectacle and devotion of millions lies a woman who can no longer recognise herself. Years spent embodying a persona have blurred the line between performance and identity, leaving her lost, fragile, and searching, on the eve of her big comeback, for something real. For some clarity. She moves through the world physically present, but somewhere else entirely, disconnected from herself. Fame has not elevated her; it has consumed her. When she breaks—quietly, violently, and inevitably—it becomes clear that the persona has overtaken the person. And the question that remains is almost unbearable in its simplicity: who is she without it? There is only one place left to turn. Only one person who might still recognise what remains. When she reunites with fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former collaborator, best friend, and perhaps the only person who truly knows her, those buried emotions resurface like ghosts from the past.
Hathaway gives one of the best performances of her career, a performance that feels almost too intimate to witness. She moves seamlessly between the commanding presence of a performer worshipped on stage and the vulnerability of a woman breaking under the weight of her own creation. It's a performance of raw, visceral intensity, as if she's collapsing under her own weight. Coel is equally extraordinary in his role, delivering a masterful performance of restrained intensity that contrasts perfectly with Hathaway's unravelling character. Their chemistry is magnetic and profoundly believable; you can feel the weight of their shared past in every glance, every silence, and every one of Coel's Shakespearean monologues. This isn't simply a reunion; it's a confrontation. It carries the echo of what they lost and never repaired. Mother Mary explores "what it means to have unfinished business with someone you love," says Hathaway. And you believe, without question, that these two women once shared something all-consuming, something almost sacred, and that losing it has left a wound neither has ever truly healed.
Although the film revolves around these two central performances, FKA twigs leaves a lasting impression despite a smaller role. Her presence is mesmerising, adding yet another layer to the film’s exploration of performance, identity, and transformation. She owns every minute of her limited screentime and created something that will remain etched in my memory for a long time.
Visually, Mother Mary is stunning. Its dark and melancholic cinematography enhances the film's gothic atmosphere, while its theatrical structure, sometimes presenting memories and past wounds as staged scenes, contributes to its haunting quality. The past is not remembered; it's performed and relived like a play from which the characters can't escape. The line between reality and metaphor is constantly blurred, particularly through the recurring image of the "red woman," a manifestation of the guilt, trauma, and emotional burden carried by both women. Whether interpreted as a shared hallucination, a symbol of their connection, or something else entirely (because it truly can represent anything to anyone—karma to Hathaway and a force of pure eternal love to Coel), it lingers like a ghost that refuses to be exorcised. Unnamed, unresolved, ever-present.
What makes Mother Mary so compelling is how it explores the idea that art is not separate from suffering—it is born from it. Both women are, each in her own way, tormented by what they created together. Their shared history, once founded on collaboration, creativity, and love, has become a source of pain, regret, and lingering tension. Yet, within this pain lies a strange beauty. To create is, in many ways, to transform suffering and ugliness into something meaningful, something beautiful, and this is precisely how Lowery describes his film, "Mother Mary is about how art can take something terrible and turn it into something beautiful."
The film builds toward a powerful final act, culminating in a moment that feels almost like a rebirth. As Mother Mary steps onto the stage and sheds the weight, both literal and emotional, of her past, it becomes clear that this is not just a performance but a release. A form of exorcism from this persona who has been consuming her for all these years.
Mother Mary is not a ghost story. But it’s a story about being haunted—by love, by art, by the versions of ourselves we leave behind. It's a story about remorse, regrets, and about the unbearable weight of creation and the fragile, fleeting grace of letting go. Spellbinding, hypnotic, and deeply unsettling, Mother Mary doesn’t just ask to be watched; it asks to be lived. To be felt.
Mother Mary is now playing in select theatres and opens nationwide on Friday.
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