Movie-Review: Mommy (2014) - Sometimes love is not enough

 

The french cinema has long been known for regularly devoting itself to unpleasant, intimate topics in an offensive and unadorned way, which in other countries would not even be touched with a protective suit and tweezers due to their explosiveness. Mommy has been another entry in this long list of 'Problem movies' of French origin. Problem movie is a term that is often used disparagingly by blockbuster goers, but I think of it as accurate here - Mommy is about the problems of a family, a mother and her uncontrollable son, an unstable teacher, a future that could have been. But Mommy does much more than just point out, it artistically puts its fingers in the wound of everyone who may have been or are in similar situations in his life - and for example, has a difficult relationship with his mother.


A special boy

Diane 'Die' Després is a widowed mother at the poverty line who, in addition to her search for a job, has to look after her son Steve who suffers from ADHD, who has constantly violent and uncontrollable outbursts of anger, has nowhere to integrate and is unpredictable in his behavior. No asylum wants to take him anymore, no school wants to educate him, Diane is at her wits end. When the former teacher Kyla moves into the neighborhood and establishes a relationship with Diane and Steve, the dreary everyday life of the difficult mother-son team changes for the better, and hope for normality arises. 

But for someone with such deep-seated disorders like Steve, who struggles since his birth with being different, is there ever any chance for a normal life?

Steve loves his mother. And Diane loves her son. As often as the two of them yell at each other in their quarrels, verbally abuse each other and physically attack each other, it is just as obvious how important they are to each other. A mother's love is an incredibly complex thing, I've heard, and is put through a lot of trials in Mommy. As viewers, we are very close to the dirty, bleak everyday life of Diane and Steve, experiencing incessantly how she tries to raise her son and somehow give him a sense of reason. And Steve, for his part, of course, tries to do the right thing. To be a good son. Who wouldn't? So he buys his mother an expensive pearl necklace to distract her from her worries for a moment. He is not very enthusiastic when Diane is convinced that the necklace has been stolen and that Steve must bring it back immediately. The matter ends in an outburst of anger and a violent argument between the two. The scene is all too symptomatic for the movie.  

Both the role of the overwhelmed mother, who tries everything to give her child a future after all, and that of the self-destructive Steve, who doesn’t know and doesn't want to know any limits, are played so convincingly that some of the scenes might as well be recordings from the living room of a real family in crisis - no, not the amateur actors from boulevard TV, real people.

I saw this movie the second time together with my mother. I have ADHD myself and had a very, very difficult relationship with her as a teenager that often got more than just loud and dirty. The film touched me, of course, but it touched both of us very differently the second time we saw it because we saw so much of us in Diane and Steve. The lump in the throat for people who can see associations' in Mommy is immense. 

The character of neighbor and ex-teacher Kya takes on the role of the viewer to some extent, who stumbles into this completely crazy and yet so incredibly intimate duo of mother and son and becomes part of it by overcoming her own insecurity, showing Steve his limits and giving Diane a long-needed friend. The three characters grow together and that's both beautiful and tragic to watch. 

Unpleasantly beautiful

We experience all of this through the extremely unusual camera perspective 1:1, which shrinks the screen into a narrow square. This is a perspective through which we perceive the emotions of the characters even more focused and undisturbed, as the director had intended it.

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The movie has mainly two dominant colors, amber yellow and cold blue. How exactly these are used should be almost obvious. And that together with the 1:1 screen are only two aspects of a movie that has so much to offer visually. Mommy is uncomfortable. From start to finish, you could hardly watch a more uncomfortable, strenuous family drama than this film. The fact that it nonetheless works so well, is visually impressive and gives you goosebumps in your arms is due to the excellent dialogues and the effects. 

Probably the greatest moment in the movie for me is - spoiler passage -  the Scene in which Steve - accompanied by the really ingenious used 'Wonderwall’ - drives down a street on his skateboard' and pushes the camera perspective apart with his hands so that we finally have a 16:9 screen. Along with the scream of an eagle. Not subtle, but beautiful and so, so intelligent. The perspective also shrinks and grows several times later to symbolize freedom and then again the deadlock of the family misery. I don't know much about filmmaking, but I think this is done awesomely.

A special dance scene in the middle of the film is only beautiful at first sight, maybe a bit uncomfortable considering how close Steve and Diane are here, but it contains so much. The lyrics that say no one really ever changes is sad foreshadowing. But for now, it's a moment of contentment where Diane and Steve can dance together and believe that everything will be fine one day. Kyle experiences the break of her dominating insecurity and together the three of them have a moment that is incredibly beautiful and intimate. It underlines how close Diane and her son are, how close many mothers and children in such difficult circumstances may actually be. Steve also kisses Diane on the mouth often - through his hand - and just wants to make her happy at the end of the day. Diane is overwhelmed with Steve and knows about his mistakes, but he's her son and she loves him. 

 

But sometimes love is not enough.

Bitter Reality

My mother and I had overcome our long-term, profound crisis together and found each other again, for which we are both grateful. But it doesn't always work out that way. I don't suffer from similar behavioral problems as the character of Steve, but what 'Mommy' essentially says from the very first minute is that reality does not dictate a happy ending. As a viewer, you feel with the on one hand terrible, on the other hand so loving characters, feel the wish that they can somehow manage to escape from their poverty and their hopeless future, and yet know that this will not happen. Every moment of hope Mommy offers us comes with a free dash of bitter reality. 

In one of the most impressive, dramatic and emotional sequences of realistic film dramas, accompanied by Ludovico Einaudi's wonderful 'experience', Diane - and us with her - ultimately experience a great, sad what if. How nice a normal life could have been. But it wasn't meant to be. 

This is a thought that has not only preoccupied me since, but increasingly so - am I a disappointment to my mother? Are there moments when she thinks about how it could have been if I had become something different? If I weren't as flawed as I am unfortunately? Does she think about what it would be like to have a 'better' child? I hope not, and I really try to counteract this idea every day and to live up to it in everything I do, and 'Mommy' also has supported me with that in its honesty and sensitivity to the thoughts and feelings of simple people in difficult situations.

Sometimes love is not enough. That's why you can't give up. Nobody is born to die. And just as the film ''Mommy” comes to a logical conclusion, which brings every lump in my throat and every wet burn in my eyes back every time I watch it, every viewer in a similar situation has to find their own way to endure reality and go on living. 

If you just want to enjoy the movie, you get an impressively authentic window into the desolate and arduous reality of broken families. With high-quality, audiovisual support, very, very marvelous scenes in actual run-down, ordinary surroundings, and painful, palpable emotions.

Mommy is an absolute recommendation for those who can endure really difficult but memorable and valuable movies. And it is a mandatory recommendation for individuals of doubtful happiness, who in their life and family often had to struggle with obstacles that reality held in store for them. The film can be therapeutic and enlightening, really. And if not that, then at least it is still entertaining and of high quality. Not a fun trip, but one for the heart. 

7 of 10 skateboards for Mommy

- Yoraiko