I Am Mother takes place in the wake of the apocalypse. We open on a robot called Mother (Rose Byrne) in a small compound, shielded from some kind of Armageddon that's wiped out humanity, beginning her task of raising a human child. Eventually, she'll have to use the thousands of embryo's stored in the facility repopulate the whole human species, but for now, she's just gotta take care of this one little youngster who grows up to become Daughter (Clara Rugaard). Mother and Daughter get along just fine, but once she turns 18, Daughter begins to become more curious about what's going on in the outside world, which Mother tells her has been contaminated from a virus. Daughter's perception of reality is challenged when a lady only known as Woman (Hillary Swank) emerges from the outside world alive.
How could Woman have possibly made it in the outside world if it's uninhabitable? Now, with Woman carrying a deep hatred for robots like Mother, a 10 Cloverfield Lane-esque situation emerges, with Daughter not knowing who to trust and what's even real. I Am Mother's premise for a cramped post-apocalypse thriller isn't the most original premise one will ever see and the resulting feature isn't outstanding by any measure. Perhaps my affinity for cinematic robots is clouding my judgment (though CHAPPiE showed even I have my limits!), but I found I Am Mother to be solidly executed and engaging enough, certainly, it's a good deal better than other sci-fi thrillers like the wretched Extinction that you'd find on Netflix.
Credit to Michael Lloyd Green's script for I Am Mother for actually creating a sense of suspenseful uncertainty over who exactly Daughter, I was never exactly sure where Mother and Woman were going next in their actions and that put me right into the similarly unsure mindset of Daughter. Helping this uncertainty is the clever design for Mother, specifically in how she's a robot devoid of a feature found in most movie robots: a human-like face. Without any eyes or mouth to help guide the viewer to Mother's underlying motivations, one truly never knows what this robot is up to and this facet of her design aids some of the most chilling moments of the feature.
Even beyond how her face adds a sense of moral ambiguity to the character, Mother's design is just dandy and it was especially a smart idea to use practical visual effects (apparently a full-body suit from Weta Digital was used) to bring this well-design robot to life. No wonder early scenes of Mother and Daughter interacting together have such a naturalness to them that effectively echoes real-life parent/child dynamics given that Clara Rugaard was able to react to the character of Mother on-set instead of just talking to a tennis ball tied to a stick. Accompanying this strong design and visual effects work on Mother is Rose Byrne's noteworthy vocal turn as the character, which compliments Mother's facial design by imbuing a sense of uneasy ambiguity in her voicework. Byrne's line deliveries constantly keep you and the other characters on edge as to what Mother could actually be up to.
The rest of I Am Mother isn't quite as impressive as the best parts of the Mother character but rarely does it dip below perfunctory. Clara Rugaard delivers a solid lead performance and Hillary Swank, after initially coming off as a touch too over-the-top in her depictions of her characters primal nature, ends up working well in this role, especially when it comes to conveying how haunted Woman is by what she's seen in her experiences in the post-apocalypse. Meanwhile, Grant Sputore makes a commendable feature film directorial debut with his work behind the camera on I Am Mother, especially in how he films tension-laced scenes. A scene featuring Daughter trying to sneak around the floor of a medical room covered in shards of glass has this frantic sensibility to it in Sputore's directing that both nicely reflects the interior mood of Daughter on a visual level and is also just exciting to watch.
Michael Lloyd Green's script, thankfully, relies more on elegant simplicity in creating a tense thriller rather than going down the route of overcomplicating the proceedings with pointless dumb twists. Unfortunately, the tail end of I Am Mother is when it slips to more middling levels of quality with a handful of final scenes that see a storyline for Hillary Swank's character just sputter out and more predictable twists emerging over the nature of Mother's character. Though it ends on a weaker note, much of I Am Mother is more on the satisfactory side of things, with the Mother character being the films best feature. If you’re in the mood for some surprisingly watchable sci-fi thrills, you could do far worse than I Am Mother, especially given how lackluster the selection of movies is on Netflix.
How could Woman have possibly made it in the outside world if it's uninhabitable? Now, with Woman carrying a deep hatred for robots like Mother, a 10 Cloverfield Lane-esque situation emerges, with Daughter not knowing who to trust and what's even real. I Am Mother's premise for a cramped post-apocalypse thriller isn't the most original premise one will ever see and the resulting feature isn't outstanding by any measure. Perhaps my affinity for cinematic robots is clouding my judgment (though CHAPPiE showed even I have my limits!), but I found I Am Mother to be solidly executed and engaging enough, certainly, it's a good deal better than other sci-fi thrillers like the wretched Extinction that you'd find on Netflix.
Credit to Michael Lloyd Green's script for I Am Mother for actually creating a sense of suspenseful uncertainty over who exactly Daughter, I was never exactly sure where Mother and Woman were going next in their actions and that put me right into the similarly unsure mindset of Daughter. Helping this uncertainty is the clever design for Mother, specifically in how she's a robot devoid of a feature found in most movie robots: a human-like face. Without any eyes or mouth to help guide the viewer to Mother's underlying motivations, one truly never knows what this robot is up to and this facet of her design aids some of the most chilling moments of the feature.
Even beyond how her face adds a sense of moral ambiguity to the character, Mother's design is just dandy and it was especially a smart idea to use practical visual effects (apparently a full-body suit from Weta Digital was used) to bring this well-design robot to life. No wonder early scenes of Mother and Daughter interacting together have such a naturalness to them that effectively echoes real-life parent/child dynamics given that Clara Rugaard was able to react to the character of Mother on-set instead of just talking to a tennis ball tied to a stick. Accompanying this strong design and visual effects work on Mother is Rose Byrne's noteworthy vocal turn as the character, which compliments Mother's facial design by imbuing a sense of uneasy ambiguity in her voicework. Byrne's line deliveries constantly keep you and the other characters on edge as to what Mother could actually be up to.
The rest of I Am Mother isn't quite as impressive as the best parts of the Mother character but rarely does it dip below perfunctory. Clara Rugaard delivers a solid lead performance and Hillary Swank, after initially coming off as a touch too over-the-top in her depictions of her characters primal nature, ends up working well in this role, especially when it comes to conveying how haunted Woman is by what she's seen in her experiences in the post-apocalypse. Meanwhile, Grant Sputore makes a commendable feature film directorial debut with his work behind the camera on I Am Mother, especially in how he films tension-laced scenes. A scene featuring Daughter trying to sneak around the floor of a medical room covered in shards of glass has this frantic sensibility to it in Sputore's directing that both nicely reflects the interior mood of Daughter on a visual level and is also just exciting to watch.
Michael Lloyd Green's script, thankfully, relies more on elegant simplicity in creating a tense thriller rather than going down the route of overcomplicating the proceedings with pointless dumb twists. Unfortunately, the tail end of I Am Mother is when it slips to more middling levels of quality with a handful of final scenes that see a storyline for Hillary Swank's character just sputter out and more predictable twists emerging over the nature of Mother's character. Though it ends on a weaker note, much of I Am Mother is more on the satisfactory side of things, with the Mother character being the films best feature. If you’re in the mood for some surprisingly watchable sci-fi thrills, you could do far worse than I Am Mother, especially given how lackluster the selection of movies is on Netflix.
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