I Am Mother

• Directed by Grant Sputore
• January 25, 2019 (Sundance) / June 7, 2019 (Australia)

After an extinction level event, a robot called ‘Mother’ raises a young girl as part of the first steps to repopulate the Earth.

With what amounts to three characters total this film certainly is complex. I Am Mother has numerous twists and turns with nothing too certain for much of the film. There isn’t much action in this film. Rather the story is carried by dialogue that moves the story. Tension is built after they firmly establish what seems to be a safe and positive situation in an otherwise dangerous world. Once you the viewer get comfy the take it all away.

The film starts out with Mother (voice of Rose Byrne/Luke Hawker performance) raising a young girl (Clara Rugaard) only ever referred to as ‘Daughter’. They live in a bunker with the reason implied to be that there is some kind of contagion on the surface. Daughter’s purpose is to eventually help him populate the Earth.

But everything gets thrown into chaos when a stranger (Hillary Swank) arrives things get kind of twisted. Mother starts as a nurturing and caring though synthetic mother and turns to something cold and disturbing yet in hindsight perhaps not entirely evil. It’s so smooth and natural.

Rose Byrne as the voice of Mother has a cold yet captivating kindness. It feels false like what one gives in a social situation and not to someone you actually care about. It is the approximation of love and kindness rather than the genuine expression of it because it is a machine. In the beginning it is not so creepy as there is just Mother and Daughter but once the stranger enters the story it becomes more sinister. As good as Mother is, the story hinges on the young girl who is Daughter.

Rugaard gives Daughter a compelling and convincing performance. You can see she cares for this machine as anyone could for a caring and nurturing presence. After all this is her ‘mother’ and the only source of affection and caring that Daughter has ever known and the young Rugaard makes you believe. She conveys love towards her Mother and confusion as the stranger throws her beliefs and world into chaos.

And the movie looks great. Much of it takes place within the bunker before finally getting outside. The bunker is a fantastic set and the environment outside is bleak but with just enough life to make you think that things are starting over again. When the story gets to the cargo container bunker most of that looks like cheap CGI but mercifully it’s one small mistake in an otherwise visually flawless film.

I Am Mother proceeds at a steady yet slow pace with it all building towards a conclusion that in hindsight is obvious though not so as it leads up to the end. Despite the twists and turns nothing is really abrupt or illogical. And they maintain tension and interest from start to finish. The characters are very well done. They have to be when they’re only really three of them in the entire movie.

By the end of the story you realize what mother is doing. And what exactly is that? Raising the girl to become a human mother. In fact that was Mother’s whole goal. You realize that the two previous children overtly hinted at were considered failures because they did not step up to the responsibility. This is even alluded to you in a line early in the film where mother says about becoming a better mother. Despite all her programming there is a learning curve and she did not have enough experience until Daughter arrived.

Truth be told I’m not sure if Mother is responsible for the extinction level event that has very nearly wiped-out humanity. She certainly sees humanity as it was prior as flawed if not bad but there is only the assumption that humanity was destroyed by her. The event could have been a war. All we get in the opener is dust falling as you hear explosions. There’s nothing to say she started it, though she is hunting down the remaining humans and killing them as she finds them. That could be simply seen as part of her plan to create a better humanity and it is a necessity to completely remove the remnants of the old.

Mother is only ever referred to as ‘mother’. Daughter never gets a name. The other that comes from the outside is never named though her companions she met previously are. It is a trick that allows the viewer to more easily identify with each character.

And for a film done on a low budget this doesn’t look cheap. They never reach beyond their limitations but stay within their budget and tell the story they want to tell us best as they can. It’s just an amazingly executed work.

I Am Mother is a great bit of post-apocalyptic science fiction that does something maybe not fresh but certainly intriguing with the sub-genre. If you’re looking for something with a little more depth and sophistication, then this is certainly something you should check out. Personally I’m sorry I waited so long to watch it.