‘Mother Mary’ assessment: Anne Hathaway has enjoyable as pop star in too-talky film

In 2024, Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” used structure as a metaphor for Hollywood filmmaking itself — the grinding hustle required to craft one thing epic in scope, infused with a private story, however finally depending on patrons who may exploit artists reasonably than help them. One may argue that “Mother Mary” is indie auteur David Lowery’s comparable try, in that it’s a movie that explores the private hazards of inventive collaboration, this time utilizing pop superstardom as a stand-in for taking part in the Hollywood recreation.

When made on a grand, industrial scale, artwork requires a crew, all the time with the chance of serious contributors feeling discarded or resentful. Lowery explores this concept in depth in “Mother Mary,” whereas suggesting that these identical damage emotions is usually a supply of inventive power, pulled from the center, slapped on a desk and formed into one thing lovely. It’s a course of that’s messy, human and complex.

“Mother Mary” is a phantasmagoric fever dream of a gothic pop opera, however additionally it is a single-setting dialog film that pits two of our most mesmerizing actors in opposition to one another in a verbal pas de deux of wordy accusation and buried betrayals.

International music icon Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) exhibits up on the English property of famed clothier Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), her former costume designer. Mary is bedraggled and moist, begging for a robe for a comeback efficiency in a couple of days. Despite Sam’s simmering anger on the means issues ended between them, she drags Mary into an outdated barn for a becoming, the place they are going to work out their points, whether or not Mary needs to or not.

There, Sam unleashes reams upon reams of pent-up monologuing about their previous whereas a teary Mary fills in a couple of gaps. We incessantly minimize away to live performance performances and flashbacks that the ladies watch like stage performs within the barn. Mary dances; Sam confesses she hasn’t listened to her music in years, virtually spitting venom at her former pal.

It goes on and on till you’re internally begging Lowery to get to the purpose already. And then abruptly he does: This is a ghost story, a possession story. But we already knew it was going someplace harmful from the outset, due to grainy footage of what appears to be a violent on-stage incident and a warning that Mother Mary’s opening banger “Burial” is a “curse.”

The movie lastly transitions from the emotional tête-à-tête to the style piece that was promised, as Sam and Mary uncover they’ve seen the identical ghost: a horrifying purple spectral imaginative and prescient. The spirit enters Mary throughout a birthday séance facilitated by an acquaintance, Imogen (FKA twigs), and she will be able to’t shake it.

The movie’s gauzy scarlet ghoul calls to thoughts Peter Strickland’s 2018 style psychodrama “In Fabric,” through which Marianne Jean-Baptiste is affected by a haunted purple gown, in addition to Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake, crammed with twisted trendy dance and bodily viscera.

It’s additionally apt to ponder Lowery’s personal “A Ghost Story,” about the best way the previous lingers, however the obvious comparability is to the pop-possession extravaganza “Smile 2,” through which Naomi Scott performs a singer invaded by an insidious demon with a signature grin. However, “Smile 2” is each gutsier and extra coherent than the cerebral and moody “Mother Mary.” Her new single is likely to be referred to as “Spooky Action” however regardless of a couple of gory moments, there’s not a lot spooky motion to be discovered within the movie as a complete.

Lowery is extra within the nature of inventive relationships and the inherent inequality in what it means to make artwork at this scale. Naturally, Lowery’s personal creative collaborators are firing on all cylinders, from Andrew Droz Palermo’s lushly surreal cinematography to authentic songs by FKA twigs, Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX, supported by a rating by Daniel Hart.

It all actually casts a spell, however the narrative devolves into atmospheric mush interpolated with too many pictures of Hathaway mugging and posing. There’s no query in regards to the expertise on show. Coel is one in every of our most hypnotic display performers and, had Hathaway determined to place her prodigious skills towards pop music as an alternative of performing, she’d be one in every of our prime acts. Her moments as Mother Mary performing dwell are so unbelievable, they depart you wanting extra — of her, however not essentially this plodding film.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service movie critic.