Mom

In his feature-length directorial debut, Adam O’Brien imagines motherhood as a horror story. Set almost entirely in a quintessentially gothic house, the film sees Meredith (Emily Hampshire) overcome with anguish and neuroses following the birth of her first child, Alex. This is compounded by the apathetic behaviour of her disengaged husband, Jared (François Arnaud), and the isolation of the sleepy suburbia in which she lives.

There’s ample opportunity for feminist discourse here. Jared expects dinner, dismisses his wife’s postpartum vaginal ailments, and leaves the household to fall into disrepair rather than helping out with chores. Meredith lies in bed at night, the dark circles under her eyes becoming more pronounced, as her other half sleeps soundly. When Meredith’s mental health further deteriorates, Jared is forced to take on more parental duties, acting like a saviour for doing so. Meanwhile, his wife struggles to embrace her newfound motherhood, finding that she does not take to it naturally.

Unfortunately, the film fails to fully explore these complexities. Philip Kalin-Hajdu’s by-the-numbers script merely touches on a subversion of the notion that women are innately maternal; a horror film about toxic gender roles would have been more engaging. Instead, Mom regurgitates tired genre clichés: jump scares that lead nowhere, horrifying dream sequences, and predictable use of sound effects.

The reliance on these tropes is a shame since O’Brien shows considerable promise as a filmmaker. His direction is atmospheric and in parts genuinely evocative. He effectively captures Meredith’s unbearable feelings of imprisonment, both in her rural isolation and her newfound maternal state. Hampshire is the standout of the film, giving an excellent performance as a woman who finds herself slowly losing her grip on reality. Her ability to flit between nurturer and aggressor is uncanny.

O’Brien will no doubt benefit from better scripts in the future, and he is an undeniably talented director, but his debut ever so slightly misses the mark. Nevertheless, Mom is an interesting concept that inspires some thought-provoking feminist discourse.

Antonia Georgiou

Mom is released on 17^th February 2025.

Watch the trailer for Mom here: