There is a staggering undercurrent of gritty neo-noir films permeating throughout our cinematic landscape. Adding onto the onslaught of forgettable streaming content, the aware will notice the overabundance of tragic tales of “real” people who are downtrodden, broken and just trying to get by. We watch them as they deal with the cultural nightmares forced upon working class Americans. The films are often somber, dreary meditations on bad situations becoming worse. Possibly, the end result is to humble the viewer into being grateful or empathetic to those less fortunate. The Good Mother has brazenly entered the canon of the grimy Americana lexicon. A film saturated in dampening moods, washed out colors and an accompanying orchestral soundtrack that dares you not to hang your head in despair.
Academy Award winner Hilary Swank drearily embodies Marissa Bennings (the good mother the film is ironically titled for) who after the murder of her estranged son, forms an unusual alliance with his pregnant girlfriend to track down those responsible for his death. Together, they confront a realm of narcotics and dishonesty within the city of Albany, unearthing a deeper, more sinister revelation. Olivia Cooke portrays Paige, the recovering addict girlfriend of Bennings’ deceased son. Cooke delivers what is basically expected from here in a moonlighting role where the only difficulty seems to be doing asinine action scenes with a prosthetic baby belly. The pedigree of Swank and Cooke alone should demand more balanced and focused material, yet they are both swaddled into a middling film that does little to intrigue and is so surface that the surprise twist will only affect viewers who never watched a single movie before. The cast rounds out with Jack Reynor, who plays Bennings’ surviving son and cop Toby. And, if you have never seen a director fail an actor by not helping him portray his character as a gloomy harbinger of deceit and malice, then this is a master class. The added bonuses on the actor side of the film are small bits from stage great Norm Lewis as Bennings’ newspaper editor boss and an acknowledgeable cameo by horror stalwart Larry Fessender.
The glaring misfortune of The Good Mother is not indicative of the acting. the actors involved approach their characterizations with as much nuance as they can muster. Also, the technical aesthetics of the film is solid. The muted colors and gritty locals are expertly captured, professionally mimicking the look and feel of better films well enough that it doesn’t derail the experience. The unfortunate culprit of The Good Mother is the story itself. Director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and co-writer Madison Harrions’ script doesn’t offer an ounce of hope, suffocating its emotional weight when the big twists are revealed. There is nothing to shift the viewer’s feelings since the film idles in only one feeling. The Good Mother only asks you to sit and watch with emotional ambiguity, leaving nothing to connect with no matter how hard you try.
The Good Mother is an urban tragedy with solid actors and a tone-deaf script. The big twist should stick with you, but the revelation is so foreshadowed that you’ll groan when it finally is brought to light. The film is somber, depressing and predictable in the name of high drama. Noir should not effortlessly slide off without any indication that its story or characters existed. The Good Mother is a good example of a bad thing.
Photo courtesy of Vertical
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