The Review: I Am Mother

I Am Mother 9/10

Full of spoilers. This was an excellent film. Yes, I said film because I Am Mother deserves that kinda respect. I had seen a clip of this on Corridor Digital but knew nothing about it and saw it was on Netflix the other day and decided to check it out. I am so glad I did. I normally don't give much of a damn about robot movies. There has to be this weird ass combination that I'm still not sure of to make me care and this one managed to hit every one of my mystery notes. This takes place in the future where this robot called Mother is charged with repopulating humanity. She places an embryo in this machine where is ages. Fast forward 13,000 days and she is taking care of this girl called Daughter.

Mother spends the days teaching Daughter about morality and testing her on ethics. Daughter seems to be living a nice life with Mother in this weird ass lab. There is nothing weird or shady. Mother isn't glitching out and being weird or anything. One night the power goes out and Daughter catches a rat that caused the outage. She later brings it to Mother who is concerned and asks if Daughter touched it. She says no. Mother says that it may be contaminated and destroys it. Daughter thought that there was no life outside the lab and starts to ask questions.

Now that she has questions she is being a nosy ass. One day while near the an airlock Daughter hears someone screaming for help. She lets a woman inside and tells her to put on a containment suit. Mother hears an alarm and sprints to find out what is happening. And when I say sprint I mean spuh-rent! It is terrifying how fast and smooth Mother moves. Daughter hides the woman and says that she was curious about outdoors. Mother cleans her off in case she is contaminated and says that she needs to take her exam now since she is awake and curious about shit. Daughter takes the woman's gun and brings her some water. The woman removes her mask and freaks Daughter out. She tells Daughter there is no contamination and when she sees Mother she gets all kinds of scared and asks for her gun back. Mother knocks the gun away from the woman and is cool about the whole thing.

Mother says that the woman has been shot and needs to be helped. The woman does not trust Mother and says that droids did this to her. She locks the woman in the infirmary with the means to help herself. Mother later convinces Daughter to go help the woman so that they can help her and others. I was like “Hmm. Okay...” The woman tells Daughter that droids just like Mother hunt and kill people. She says that there are other survivors and even a boy about Daughter's age. The woman is getting in worse condition and Mother explains that she is infected from her wound and needs help. The woman still won't let Mother touch her so Daughter ends up doing the surgery. You should have seen the faces I made during that scene. Mother examines the bullet removed from the woman and says it matches the bullets from the gun that the woman had. Mother asks what else Daughter and the woman talked about. Daughter says nothing really.

Daughter takes her test and gets to choose an embryo so she can have a sibling to grow. Daughter goes to talk to the woman and says she shot herself. The woman asks if Daughter has seen the bullets. Daughter uses a broken arm from Mother and finds out that the bullets do not match and Mother lied. Daughter starts looking around for more shit Mother lied about. She finds out that other embryos were created before her and that some were cremated like the rat was. Daughter decides that she is gonna bounce with the woman but Mother knows this and locks her in a room. She heads to the woman and asks her some questions and by ask I mean dig her robot fingers in her wound. The woman fights back and Daughter gets free and sets off a fire alarm.

The woman takes Daughter hostage holding a knife to her throat and makes Mother open the door to let them go. They go across this shitty looking wasteland and immediately I thought “You know...Mother ain't so bad.” There are giant drones flying overhead. Daughter gets to feel dirt for the first time. At first she is amazed and even gets to pet a dog the woman has. Then reality sets in. There are no other people. The woman says she ain't seen anyone in years. She lied. She is a lying liar who lies! Daughter gives her five across the eye two times. Seriously. The woman lives in a shipping container in the wasteland. I'd rather be watching old Tonight Show episodes and learning shit with Mother. So does Daughter. She leaves and heads back and is confronted by a bunch of robots that look like Mother but meaner. The lock sites on her and she says she is there to talk to Mother and they let her pass.

That's where I'm gonna leave it. This movie had great pacing. Just when it seems like it may threaten to drag it picks up again and made me suspicious of Mother and her actions. This is one of those movies I'd like to watch again and see if I missed anything in its behavior. I watched some videos afterward that pointed out things I missed or disregarded like the fact that 13,000 days had passed but Daughter was so young and should have been in her 30's. Mother is both terrifying and comforting depending on how I felt at that moment. The actresses were really good. Daughter was able to say a lot about how she felt with just a look. The woman was great and I believed her, didn't, knew she was a liar, and then felt bad for her. Watch this. You ain't doing nothing else.

Clara Rugaard as Daughter

Luke Hawker as Mother (performance)

Rose Byrne as Mother (voice)

Hilary Swank as Woman

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