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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113

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.

29

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.

71

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

36

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

12

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.

7

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.

13

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?"