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Mother Mary, starring Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel, directed by David Lowery
Trailer: A24

Mother Mary
Directed by David Lowery
Rated R
Sung 24 April 2026
#MotherMaryMovie

David Lowery’s Mother Mary is a complex look at artists and artistry.

Vogue

Even before the A24 logo appears, there’s a shocking revelation. Set against grainy footage and noisy, analog popping sounds, a woman is seen hanging from the rafters of a concert’s elaborate staging.

It’s quite a dramatic stage-setter, but as the characters are introduced and the story settles in, Mother Mary is less about horror and more about all manner of metaphors surrounding creative pursuits. Indeed, it’s interesting even the movie’s posters proclaim it’s not a horror story and it’s not a love story.

But those elements are most certainly there.

It’s clever. And it’s a very dialogue-heavy, yet remarkably cinematic experience focused on the relationship between two artists: the pop star who goes by the stage name Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) and Sam Anselm (Michaela Cole), a fashion designer who helped create Mother Mary’s stage identity in part through extravagant costumes.

The two were a creative force of music and fashion for album after album and tour after tour, but it all fell apart at the seams 10 years ago when they suffered a falling out following the morbid incident teased in those opening frames.

The dialogue is often sharp, borderline Shakespearean, which is quite a testament to the creative force behind the camera: writer-director David Lowery. With features like this and The Green Knight, he seems to be building an inadvertent reputation as a painfully misunderstood and underappreciated filmmaker.

Take nothing about Mother Mary at face value. View it as its own work of art, one that could conceivably be transferred to a two-person stage play.

One

It is essentially a two-person show, but the story also cuts to grand concert scenes, revealing the talents of both Mother Mary and Sam, their symbiotic relationship and the profound impact they have on the audiences at the live experiences.

Keep in mind, it’s Anne Hathaway on screen singing songs written by FKA twigs, Charli xcx and others. Hathaway’s a talented force in her own right (she received the Oscar for her performance as Fantine in Les Miserables), as is Coel, who’s a rising star with this and The Christophers, Steven Soderbergh’s own exploration of art teaming Coel with Ian McKellen.

A logical assumption is Hathaway looked to Madonna for inspiration. But Hathaway’s said she was thinking of a future-state, older Taylor Swift as her model.

Savor this rarity and let it sink in as a formidable work of art. Don’t go expecting modern horror, which is to say gore for nothing more than the sake of bizarre, inexplicable gore. This is a Hitchcock-level psychological drama with an even deeper spiritual element.

As Mother Mary and Sam throw their verbal barbs and dig into their past, they practically get tongue-tied while trying to convey various ideas through metaphors and abstractions. (Wait! Are you speaking literally or metaphorically?) As they try to come to terms with their own terms, it’s the movie’s visuals that build a bridge of metaphors (metaphorically speaking).

Only Happy When It Rains

The primary setting is nicely theatrical. It’s a classic old English cottage, decked out with a fashion designer’s wares. It’s Sam’s place and Mother Mary storms the place in suitably dramatic fashion. With one line, their confrontation begins: “I need a dress.”

As their relationship is untangled, more is learned about each and their dynamics seem natural. Mother Mary is at her happiest singing sad songs. As Sam puts, Mother Mary has a rare gift, that of giving people the gift of giving a crap about her as a superstar. Her’s is a sadness writ large across the sky, Sam proclaims dramatically.

But this time around, Mother Mary’s not looking for a reinvention. She is, though, looking to express who she really is now. And this performance – her first in 10 years – is being built around a new song about unexplained connections. For the two, the stumble on newly, highly irregular connection involving a ghostly sight.

But. This. Isn’t. A. Ghost. Story.

There’s the thread, as it were, that starts to sew the narrative together. Chance. Karma. Will. Spirituality. Whatever it might be, it’s brought these two back together.

Questions linger about how exactly that opening incident fell into place; it’s an incident that’s never fully resolved. But that’s somewhat beside the point, particularly in the environment of these characters, surrounded by symbolism and deeper meanings. And perhaps that’s where the visual metaphors hand the emotions back to the characters with more honest realizations.

• Originally published at MovieHabit.com.