Review: A pop star needs a makeover in ‘Mother Mary’ but one dress keeps getting in the way

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used architecture as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft something epic in scope, infused with a personal story, but ultimately dependent on patrons who might exploit artists rather than support them. One could argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s similar attempt, in that it’s a film that explores the personal hazards of creative collaboration, this time using pop superstardom as a stand-in for playing the Hollywood game.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, art requires a team, always with the risk of significant contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this idea in depth in “Mother Mary,” while suggesting that these same hurt feelings can be a source of creative energy, pulled from the heart, slapped on a table and shaped into something beautiful. It’s a process that is messy, human and complicated.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, but it is also a single-setting conversation movie that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors against each other in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the English estate of famed fashion designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and wet, begging for a gown for a comeback performance in a few days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger at the way things ended between them, she drags Mary into an old barn for a fitting, where they will work out their issues, whether Mary wants to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their past while a teary Mary fills in a few gaps. We frequently cut away to concert performances and flashbacks that the women watch like stage plays in the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, practically spitting venom at her former friend.

It goes on and on until you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the point already. And then suddenly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession tale. But we already knew it was going somewhere dangerous from the outset, thanks to grainy footage of what seems to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The film finally transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the genre piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary discover they’ve seen the same ghost: a horrifying red spectral vision. The spirit enters Mary during a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she can’t shake it.

The film’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to mind Peter Strickland’s 2018 fashion psychodrama “In Fabric,” in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tormented by a haunted red dress, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, filled with twisted modern dance and bodily viscera.

It’s also apt to ponder Lowery’s own “A Ghost Story,” about the way the past lingers, but the most obvious comparison is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” in which Naomi Scott plays a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is both gutsier and more coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single might be called “Spooky Action” but despite a few gory moments, there’s not much spooky action to be found in the film as a whole.

Lowery is more interested in the nature of creative relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make art at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s own artistic collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to original songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a score by Daniel Hart.

It all certainly casts a spell, but the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many images of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no question about the talent on display. Coel is one of our most hypnotic screen performers and, had Hathaway decided to put her prodigious talents toward pop music instead of acting, she’d be one of our top acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing live are so fantastic, they leave you wanting more — of her, but not necessarily this plodding movie.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.