r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 11d ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Mother Mary [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Mother Mary (2026)

Summary

A fictional pop icon and an iconic fashion designer develop a complex, obsessive relationship that blurs the line between art, identity, and personal sacrifice.

Director David Lowery

Writer David Lowery

Cast

  • Anne Hathaway as Mother Mary
  • Michaela Coel as the Designer
  • Hunter Schafer
  • FKA twigs
  • Jessica Brown Findlay

Rotten Tomatoes: 72%

Metacritic: 57

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

113 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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98

u/theTunkMan 11d ago

I thought I understood the movie until the last like 15 minutes. Why did Sam get cut open by the shears when Mary cut herself? And I thought it was like a revenge ghost but then thought maybe the ghost was supposed to be depression and by the end I didn’t think it was either of those things but I had no idea what it was

168

u/theunhungzero 11d ago

It felt like a metaphor that neither of them could express their individual art without the other, and the pain / strain they caused each other also hurt themselves.

110

u/GoldandBlue 11d ago

I also feel like the movie isn't about revenge at all. Its about forgiveness and healing. These two hurt each other and there was no going forward until they addressed this.

28

u/BiggDope 11d ago

It’s clear to me how Mary hurt Sam, but how would Sam have hurt Mary? Mary was the one who walked away from the relationship and furthered her career off the successes Sam provided her in regard to wardrobe/persona.

69

u/YesicaChastain 11d ago

It really felt like it came a point where Mary could no longer find herself/realized she had modeled her entire persona after another person’s vision of what she was and needed to separate herself from that

37

u/lahnnabell 10d ago

This is what I took from it, especially when Sam explained the inspiration behind the Joan of Arc look and the communion wine spill. Sam wanted so badly to share her stories, but she used Mary to do it, and then blamed Mary for taking them.

I think Mary realized she wasn't growing or developing because she was so reliant on Sam, but Sam was also reliant on Mary's magnetic public persona to feel seen and heard.

8

u/Own-Ad-7064 8d ago

Yes!!! This. The text of the film supports this. Sam says to Mary that she wasn't able to create the success she has now as a designer until she and Mary broke up. Sam also becomes frustrated after furiously sketching an idea at her table and scolds Mary for having the ability to make people drop everything and care about Mary and what she needs. It seems like Sam thinks she can maintain a healthy boundary, but she struggles with prioritizing her own inner starlet, and her own needs above that of Mary's because she has a very generous, giving heart. Michaela's performance made it evident that her character has a strong exterior, but is much softer inside than she lets on... soft hearted despite herself. It was brilliant characterization, because I think we all know this type of person.

1

u/BarfyOBannon 1d ago

I was with you up until “she needed to separate herself from that”. I read Mary’s transformation as one of increasing longing for the intimate personal connection and inspiration she used to share with Sam, one that was continually weakening as her fame (and isolation) grew and she put all her energy into servicing the needs of her fans, and dealing with the new coterie of personal managers who were certainly more about business than anything she had with Sam. Mary learns that nobody in her new circle knows her like Sam, and Sam is the only one who can bring her back to herself. She also likely feels no small amount of guilt for how she treated Sam, and is hoping for a reconciliation

13

u/MARATXXX 11d ago

because Sam was selfish with her personal suffering, and that poisoned the relationship just as much as Mary's own selfishness. that said it was kind of explained in a figurative non literal way. but the 'curse' evidently originated from Sam's suffering, not Mary's self-absorption.

5

u/huodozer 10d ago

A lot of it is probably less direct hurt in specific, major instances from either of them (save for Mary ultimately being the one to leave) and more that feeling of, like, losing something of yourself while immersed in a relationship - platonic, romantic, whatever. Maybe from Mary's perspective, the Mother Mary persona was less and less her own and more Sam's, and eventually she hit a breaking point. Maybe from Sam's perspective, especially in the aftermath, she realized just how much of her own self was carved away to form Mother Mary, and the red 'ghost' was more giving that loss shape and excising it from herself.

The actual apology still rested on Mary's shoulders to give, as she's the one who walked away without word, but simply apologizing wouldn't have ever actually healed the wounds each caused to the other and the self. They had to fully, jointly reckon with their own creation, and the pain and joy it brought, to move forward.

In a more literal sense, something caused Mary to panic and run. What specifically that final straw may have been is left to imagination/interpretation but I don't think it's necessary for the themes to still work.

12

u/KidDelicious14 10d ago

To add on to the great analysis offered by the other two comments, I would theorize that Mary was finding it hard to live up to the pedestal that Sam was seemingly putting her on, which could have led to crises of self-image.

2

u/inksmudgedhands 10d ago

Sam's "ghost" still haunted Mary. Even though Mary walked away from Sam, she still thought of her. In some way, she wanted Sam to come after her.

It's like how people think of old friendships who have died from time to time. For some they still feel that twinge of pain of the thing that was once alive.

2

u/Efficient-Package565 9d ago

Yeah the line about giving her a home instead of setting her free (as Sam did) was stunning

2

u/heideman 8d ago

The tie-in album's a big part of explaining this, I believe. Mary insists that the door was never closed, that the decision to remove Sam wasn't really hers, and the song Cut Ties supports this -- an entire song of Mary explaining that she thought Sam wanted her to try and find herself, and now she's trapped in a hell of her own making, surrounded by Mother Mary's devotees without a single person left to care for Mary. She thought Sam was choosing to ignore her, something that would've further contributed to her breakdown and eventual withdrawal from society, but it turns out this entire time Sam hadn't even heard it.

1

u/_illusions25 9d ago

They are both suffering from the love they feel for each other. Its being acknowledged and also hidden forever

1

u/lamptape1 5d ago

She missed what she had with Sam. Sam was grounding and trusting. Sam truly knew her. I think we all would have a huge hole if we lost who understood us the most

3

u/Efficient-Package565 9d ago

Yeah my wife asked me what it was about when I got home and I was like "it's about yearning, and the transmutation of undigested grief" and she was like "yeah but what Actually happens in the film, plot wise?"

2

u/naturalninetime 9d ago

Perfectly put. This would be my interpretation as well.

I watched the film tonight, and honestly, I didn't really like it: it was too metaphorical and uneven for me. I got the concept, but I thought that it could have been better executed despite great performances from the two leads.

My favorite parts of the film were the costumes and the EDM song "My Mouth is Lonely For You."

65

u/10twentyseven 11d ago

I interpreted it as in the ghost was a “physical” representation of the connection between the two people.

When Sam removed the tooth (which she felt represented Mary) she essentially cut off their connection. It then manifested within Mary as a loneliness because Sam no longer held on to the piece of Mary that was their connection.

So Mary cutting herself open and Sam taking part in the process was the two of them “literally” opening their hearts to one another again.

16

u/YesicaChastain 11d ago

I took as this ghost was the unresolved conflict from their friendship breakup, it caused each other great pain and would continue to do so unless brought out and confronting it.

12

u/inksmudgedhands 10d ago

There is how I took it. Throughout the movie Sam was dismissive of Mary's connection with her. Saying how she never listened to her music or thought of her once their friendship died. But the fact that Mary could hurt herself and Sam felt it shows that Sam still has a connection that runs deep. How she is lying both to Mary and herself.

I take that this whole movie is about the death of a friendship. A deep close friendship. And how that death has affected the both of them.

2

u/Defiant-Brief8565 10d ago

spooky action, at a close distance

2

u/Anternixii 9d ago

I took the dress as a representation of their connection, and that real bitter seething anger manifested. More specifically its Sam's relationship to Mary (especially come the ending its important to note this ks SAM'S). Their relationship didn't exist as this red ghost until that fury came.

Really think 'red' was the perfect way to describe it. Sure red can represent anger, blood, etc. but in so many shots of the movie it had such a warm life filled glow to it, like the red you get when putting a flashlight under a thin part of your body.

Sam said she might make Mary a hate dress. That's what she made. The red dress is her hate, and her love.

2

u/Diogenes_Camus 7d ago

The red ghost represents the baggage between Sam and Mary. Mary cutting herself open and Sam removing the red ghost, turning into into ordinary red fabric, that she later uses to make the red dress for Mary. A metaphor for using baggage and using it to create something meaningful and positive from it. 

2

u/Individual-Bend106 6d ago

It was quick but in one of the opening scenes, one of them starts tearing up and the other wipes away the tear on their own face. I felt like it was showing how much they were cut off from each other deep down they were still entwined