After Emmett’s estranged mother dies and he inherits her house, Mother, May I? follows the strange and unexpected events that haunt him and his partner.
★★✰✰✰
The opening shot of Mother, May I? suggests a film that has a tight grip on what makes familial horror so effective. As Emmett’s (Kyle Gallner) mother lies dead on the floor and the score kicks in, a sense of foreboding familiarity soon takes hold. It feels explicitly sinister yet also carries a dwindling sense of humour to it, as if the film is aware of how explicit its imagery is so early on. The music resists building pace, instead choosing to imbue a comically lackadaisical rhythm. This effectively turns a stereotypically creepy first shot into something more sinister entirely, with the comedy forming an off-beat tone that feels both welcome and uncomfortable. The edit is snappy, which further adds to the enjoyably jarring tone. This is carried on throughout the first few minutes of Mother, May I?, as Emmett and Anya (Holland Roden) are introduced in a similarly self-aware, off-putting sensibility, infusing awkward comedic beats to the implicit sadness of the situation. As the title credits roll, and the score once again returns to the surface, Mother, May I? promises a tightrope walk of horror and off-kilter comedy that efficiently unsettles.
Once Emmett and Anya move into the house, he notices strange changes in Anya’s behaviour. As she begins to act more and more like Emmett’s late mother, their brief, temporary stay before selling the house takes on an entirely different meaning. This plot mostly gives way to a frustating narrative that is both unfocused and unclear, and unfortunately, Mother, May I? runs out of steam inside its first 30 minutes.
After the main point of the mother possessing Anya is revealed, the pacing grinds to a halt, and a series of painfully similar interactions unfold. Once you have seen Anya as Emmett’s mother chastise him, you have seen the majority of the drawn-out 90 minute runtime. The plot fails to deliver any interesting character insights. The interesting directional choices—a few interspersed slow tracking shots that are, at their best, reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980)—lose all sense of weight or intrigue.
This plot traps its actors in a spiral of occasional over-acting and confused character decisions. The opening never gives us enough time to care for either Emmett or Anya, which is necessary given the very emotional stakes at play surrounding grief and childhood trauma. Without the required knowledge of who these people are or why we should care, supposedly deep-rooted trauma that is being unearthed falls entirely flat. Both Gallner and Roden do the best they can, with the latter’s turn as the mother providing a suitably irritating presence to Emmett.
Ultimately, Roden is required to overact as the mother, and whilst her presence does inject some sort of life into the scenes, the overall lack of direction is still apparent despite her vivacity. We know that Emmett has issues with his mother, but this ham-fisted approach feels far too literal. All Emmett can do is throw his arms up in frustration from scene to scene, and whilst Gallner’s performance keeps Mother, May I? from drifting fully into the parodic, he cannot do enough to make any of this interesting.
As Mother, May I? progresses, character reveals mainly result in viewers scratching their heads. Not everything needs to be made explicit in films, especially ones like this tackling complex human emotions, but without any real background, reveals are left hanging and scenes are left without any catharsis. As characters only grow in frustration, along with the audience, Mother, May I? chooses to speed up instead of slowing down. The drama is notched up and the characters act more rashly.
This makes sense: a film’s forward momentum is usually matched by an increase in character impetus. However, as dialogue remains vague, Mother, May I? could have really benefitted from a few expositional moments to catch the viewer up. Some is given, but in ways that do not match up to what we have been shown about the characters. Anya is said to be image-obsessed, but she only interacts with Emmett and shows no evidence of trying to maintain any sort of image.
The main saving grace is director Laurence Vannicelli’s visual and directorial decisions, which for the most part remain consistently interesting. Along with the slow tracking shots, his choices in singular framing, particularly of Emmett and Anya, deliver a genuinely haunting aura to Mother, May I?. In moments when he combines this with the slow push-in on characters, it really allows both actors to shine. Once both Gallner and Roden are allowed a bit of freedom to show their character’s pain, the film becomes much livelier. This visual style is felt in the ending, but it is not enough to keep things from retaining the sense of confusion that characterises most of the film.
The Verdict
Mother, May I? is sparse and confused in its plotting and character motivations. What could have been a slow-building horror about family trauma turns into a far too obvious attempt to deal with these issues head on. Some directorial choices salvage a few moments of tension, but as the final credits roll, all that remains is a sense of wasted potential from the initially promising opening.
Words by James Evenden
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