Mama (2013 film)

Mama
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Andrés Muschietti
Produced by	J. Miles Dale Bárbara Muschietti
Screenplay by	Neil Cross Andrés Muschietti Bárbara Muschietti
Story by	Andrés Muschietti Bárbara Muschietti
Based on	Mamá by Andrés Muschietti
Starring	Jessica Chastain Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Music by	Fernando Velázquez
Cinematography	Antonio Riestra
Edited by	Michelle Conroi
Production company	Toma 78 De Milo Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	18 January 2013 (2013-01-18)
Running time	100 minutes[1]
Country	Spain
Language	English
Budget	$15 million[2][3]
Box office	$146.4 million[3]

Mama is a 2013 English-language Spanish^[4][5][6] supernatural horror film directed and co-written by Andrés Muschietti and based on his 2008 Argentine short film Mamá. The film stars Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and is produced by Zandy Federico and co-writer Bárbara Muschietti, with Guillermo del Toro serving as executive producer.

The film deals with the story of two young girls abandoned in a forest cabin, fostered by an unknown entity that they fondly call "Mama", which eventually follows them to their new suburban home after their uncle retrieves them. Originally set for an October 2012 release, it was released in theaters on 18 January 2013. The movie was remade in Tamil under the title Mooch.^[7]

Plot

Distraught after losing his fortune in the 2008 financial crisis, stockbroker Jeffrey Desange kills his business partners and estranged wife before taking his children, three-year-old Victoria and one-year-old Lilly, away from home. Driving dangerously fast on a snowy road, Jeffrey loses control and the car slides down the mountain, ramming into the woods. Surviving, he takes the children into an abandoned cabin. Planning to kill his daughters and commit suicide, he holds a gun to Victoria's head, but a shadowy figure kills him. The girls, huddled by the fireside, are tossed a cherry by the mysterious figure.

Five years later, a rescue party, sponsored by Jeffrey's identical twin brother Lucas, finds Victoria and Lilly alive, but in a feral state after years of isolation. The girls are put in a welfare clinic under the psychiatric care of Dr. Gerald Dreyfuss. They make reference to "Mama", a maternal protector figure. The girls are initially hostile to Lucas but Victoria recognizes him after he gives her a pair of glasses and she can see him properly. Dreyfuss agrees to support Lucas and his girlfriend Annabel's custody claim against the girls' maternal great-aunt, Jean Podolski. Victoria acclimates quickly to domestic life while Lilly retains much of her feralness (language regression, growling, laying on the floor), not being used to being around people.

While in bed with Lucas, Annabel is startled by the appearance of a monstrous figure. Lucas is attacked by "Mama" and is put into a coma. Annabel, who is uncomfortable being around the girls, finds herself left alone to care for them. Although Annabel makes progress with Victoria, she finds Lilly hostile. Alarmed by nightmares of a woman and Victoria's warning about Mama's jealousy, Annabel asks Dreyfuss to investigate. He initially thought "Mama" to be an imaginary alter-ego of Victoria; however, his research corroborates Victoria's story that Mama is an aggrieved mother and brings to light the story of Edith Brennan, a mental asylum patient in the 1800s.

Dreyfuss recovers a box from a government warehouse containing a baby's remains. Annabel has a nightmare revealing Mama's past: when Edith Brennan ("Mama") was sent to St. Gertrude's Asylum for an unknown reason, her child was taken from her and given to nuns. She escaped the asylum, stabbed a nun and took her baby back. Fleeing her pursuers, Brennan jumped off a cliff, but before hitting the water below, Brennan and the child made impact with a large branch and she drowned; Edith's child's corpse snagged on the branch and did not fall with Brennan into the water. Annabel realizes that Mama still hasn't realized her child died from hitting the tree; Mama unsuccessfully searched the woods for more than a century and had taken on Victoria and Lilly as substitutes.

Lucas regains consciousness after a vision of his dead brother, Jeffrey, tells him to save his daughters. Victoria's growing closeness to Annabel makes her less willing to play with Mama, unlike Lilly. Dreyfuss visits the cabin and is killed by Mama. Annabel and the girls are attacked by a jealous Mama, who kills Jean and uses her body to scare the children away in Jean's car. Annabel and Lucas find the children on the same cliff where Brennan leaped with her child to their deaths over a century earlier. Mama is preparing to re-enact her fall with Victoria and Lilly.

When Annabel offers Mama the remains of her child, Mama transforms into her human form and sobs at the baby's death. However, when Lilly (remembering only Mama as her original parent, since she was abandoned in the woods for most of her life) calls out for her, Mama reverts to her monstrous form and takes the girls again, nearly killing Annabel and Lucas, but refraining mainly because Victoria cares about them and does not want them hurt. Annabel clings to Victoria, who asks to stay with Annabel instead of leaving with Mama, which Mama accepts. After a tearful farewell, Mama and Lilly fall off the cliff, turning into a shower of moths when they hit the branch. Annabel and Lucas embrace Victoria, and Victoria notices a bright blue moth landing on her hand, indicating that Lilly is still with her in some form.

Cast

• Jessica Chastain as Annabel
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Lucas Desange / Jeffrey Desange
• Megan Charpentier as Victoria Desange
  • Morgan McGarry as Young Victoria
• Isabelle Nélisse as Lilly
  • Maya and Sierra Dawe as Young Lilly
• Daniel Kash as Dr. Gerald Dreyfuss
• Javier Botet as Mama
  • Laura Guiteras as Mama (Voice)
  • Melina Matthews as Mama (Voice)
  • Hannah Cheesman as Beautiful Mama / Edith Brennan
• Jane Moffat as Jean Podolski / Mama (Voice)
• David Fox as Burnsie
• Julia Chantrey as Nina
• Elva Mai Hoover as Secretary
• Dominic Cuzzocrea as Ron
• Diane Gordon as Louise

Production

The film began production in Pinewood Toronto Studios on 3 October 2011. Production ended on 18 December 2011. Parts of the film were also shot in Quebec City, Quebec. Although the film was produced in Canada, it is based in Clifton Forge, Virginia. The film was initially scheduled for release in October 2012, but was later rescheduled for January^[8] to avoid competing with Paranormal Activity 4. Its success at that later date has, among with other dump months horror films, convinced studios to start opening horror movies year-round.^[9]

Reception

Critical reception

Mama received generally favorable reviews from critics; it currently holds a 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 152 reviews. The site's consensus states: "If you're into old school scares over cheap gore, you'll be able to get over Mama's confusing script and contrived plot devices."^[10]

Richard Roeper, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, enjoyed the film, giving it three stars out of four and saying, "Movies like Mama are thrill rides. We go to be scared and then laugh, scared and then laugh, scared and then shocked. Of course, there's almost always a little plot left over for a sequel. It's a ride I'd take again."^[11] Owen Gleiberman, reviewing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the movie a B and said, "Mama lifts almost every one of its fear-factor visuals from earlier films: the rotting black passageways that spread like mold over the walls (very Ringu meets Repulsion); the crouched figures that skitter and pounce à la the infamous 'spider' outtake from the original Exorcist; the way that Mama, with her arms like smoky-shadowy bent tendrils, evokes both the monster from the Alien films and also, in a funny way, the crumpled-puppet gothic mischievousness of Tim Burton animation. Nothing in the movie is quite original, yet Muschietti, expanding his original short,^[12] knows how to stage a rip-off with frightening verve. It helps to have an actress on hand as soulful as Jessica Chastain..."^[13]

IGN editor Scott Corulla rated the film 7.3 out of 10 and wrote, "This is a fine first film for director Andrés Muschietti and, despite some missteps and disappointments, very well could be a harbinger of interesting things to come for the helmer."^[14] The Huffington Post wrote, "With Del Toro's name up front, expect Mama to be the winter horror film of choice in 2013."^[15] The Philadelphia Inquirer called the film an "effectively spooky ghost story", adding, "Mama is full of arty tropes – sepia-toned flashbacks, flickering lights, menacing murmurings. The atmosphere is positively spectral. And it's easy to see why del Toro is a champion: Like his Pan's Labyrinth, there's a fairy-tale aspect (the film even begins with the title card "Once upon a time..."), with children in jeopardy, a witchy monster, and edge-of-the-precipice confrontations."^[16] Canyon News wrote, "The scares do indeed come a mile a minute and will unnerve even some of the toughest moviegoers."^[17] Mick LaSalle of the Houston Chronicle wrote, "Director Andres Muschietti is cinematically literate – in one example he borrows a flashbulb effect from Hitchcock's Rear Window – and he has visual panache. Much of the movie is surprisingly beautiful."^[18]

Box office

The film earned $28,402,310 on its opening weekend, debuting at #1 and playing at 2,647 theaters.^[19] As of 4 April 2013, it grossed $146,428,180 worldwide and is a commercial success.^[3][20] Additionally, Jessica Chastain, for the second time in her career, claimed the top two spots of the box-office with her starring roles in Mama and Zero Dark Thirty'".^[21]

Accolades

Sequel

In February 2013, it was reported that a sequel was in works.^[27] In January 2016, it was announced that duo Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch would rewrite and direct the sequel.^[28] Chastain would not return for the sequel.^[29]

See also

• List of ghost films

References

External links

• Official website
• Mama on Facebook
• Mama at the Internet Movie Database
• Mama at Box Office Mojo
• Mama at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mama at Metacritic