Mother Mary director’s unexpected response to critics of bonkers Anne Hathaway movie

David Lowery is an audacious filmmaker, with his latest release, Mother Mary, presenting an unusual blend of pop concert movie, relationship drama, supernatural gothic-tinged fantasy and body horror.

Anne Hathaway stars as the titular Mary, a visionary music artist on the eve of a major comeback who is in desperate need of a dress from her former collaborator and ex-friend, Sam (Michaela Coel).

The movie flits between Hathaway performing giant stadium bangers written by Charli XCX, Jack Antonoff and co-star FKA twigs and a tense two-hander situation with Coel, where the former pals alternately tear into each other and work together in a creepy isolated barn, haunted by their memories of each other – among other entities.

It’s safe to say that, as some audience members praise his work for its boldness and originality, others have less time for Lowery’s big swings.

Mother Mary has inspired divided reactions, with some critics branding it a ‘head-scratcher’ and a ‘disaster’ – one even snored loudly through my screening – while others see it as ‘bewitching’, ‘weirdly mesmerising’ and ‘flat-out marvellous’.

But for the writer-director behind The Green Knight, The Old Man & the Gun and A Ghost Story, presenting his most ‘out-there’ piece yet, it’s surprising to hear him admit to being in any way concerned by negative feedback.

‘I definitely want everyone to love my movies; I’m a people pleaser,’ he tells Metro a few days before Mother Mary’s UK release.

‘But at the same time, I want to make movies that push and provoke – and I know that those aren’t going to be for everyone, so when I make a movie like this, it’s really important for me to just put the blinders up and focus on what it is that I’m trying to express and know that there will be at least one other person out there that feels the same way I do. Hopefully more than just one! And respect the fact that it’s not for everyone; that’s okay.’

He adds: ‘I think about all the movies that I go to see that I don’t love, but I appreciate them having been made. So I hope, at the very least, if someone goes to see this and it’s not for them, they appreciate the intent with which it was made.’

There’s an audience that is ready for this movie in a way that there wasn’t 10 years ago

In that same vein, he laughs that he has the pressures of considering both reigning things back to attract a wider audience and doubling down on his original vision to bring something unique to cinemas, ‘imposed entirely on myself, by myself’.

‘I always want to push the boundaries, and then I get worried that I’ve pushed them too far, and I need to retreat to something a little safer. I feel both of those things can be true. I’ve certainly made my share of remakes at this point – I understand the value of it, and I don’t look sideways at it.’

Lowery is, of course, talking about the two most unexpected and obviously commercial films on his CV, thanks to two Disney remakes: 2016’s Pete’s Dragon and 2023’s Peter Pan & Wendy.

‘I really feel that there’s a place for that and great work can be done in that mode because sometimes, that’s just what you need to get the movie made. I get it. But I also would be so sad if that’s all that was made,’ he adds. ‘And so I’m incredibly grateful that when I have an idea like Mother Mary, I can find a home for that as well.’

That home is courtesy of A24, and it’s the third time Lowery has worked with the increasingly influential studio; indeed, fans now see the company’s involvement in the production or distribution of a film as a mark of high quality.

Previous movie successes of theirs include Marty Supreme, Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Celine Song’s rom-com Materialists. A24 is also a promising smaller force outside major studios, still pushing for cinematic releases.

Of Mother Mary, Lowery adds: ‘There certainly is an audience that is ready for this movie in a way that there wasn’t 10 years ago when I first collaborated with them on A Ghost Story. They’ve really nurtured that audience.’ 

He also admits that his decision to do those glossy Disney remakes wasn’t as simple as the usual ‘one for me, one for them’ model.

When Pete’s Dragon emerged as a possibility for Lowery, there were a few movies he was toying with making, including The Old Man & the Gun, which he ended up doing afterwards.

‘But when I was looking at the possibilities that were in front of me, I realised… It was just the one that meant the most to me, and I really didn’t want anyone else to make it.’

With all of the changes from the original 1977 film too, Pete’s Dragon was also, he is keen to point out, ‘for all intents and purposes an original film that just used the title from the previous movie’.

In Mother Mary, Hathaway gives one of the greatest performances of her career opposite the powerhouse that is Coel, surprising Lowery with the way in which they ‘took what was on the page and enriched it’.

‘It was both incredibly gratifying and also somewhat humbling because they’re taking words that I had written and transforming them into something that I could scarcely conceive of scratching the surface of,’ he marvels.

Lowery was confident that she was capable of meeting both the rigorous acting demands and physical performance and singing aspects of playing Mother Mary, describing the role as ‘on the Venn diagram between Les Mis and Rachel Getting Married’.

But even still, he admits the Oscar winner exceeded all of his expectations.

Body horror is what it means to commit to the act of self-expression, not wholeheartedly but whole bodily

‘Watching in a close-up the decisions going on, second by second, in her performance was truly a masterclass. One of the goals that I had with making this movie was to lock myself in a room with two really great actors and get to direct them, but also learn from them.’

I tell Lowery that I was particularly impressed by how Hathaway completely persuaded me of Mother Mary’s pop superstar prowess, performing concert segments that measure up to what we see from the likes of Madonna, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.

Surely she’d be capable of bashing a couple nights out at a big stadium now as Mother Mary?

‘But she wouldn’t have been able to when we started,’ responds Lowery, remarking on the ‘tremendous learning curve to becoming a pop star’.

‘She took 10 years of hard work and crammed it into 4 months so that she was able to do the things that the screenplay described – and improve upon them. It was a Herculean effort on her part.’

He continues: ‘The thread that is consistent across the decades, is that pop stars all are the hardest workers you’ll ever see in any mode of entertainment, and Anne is right up there with them.’

It’s this that also inspired Lowery to add the body horror elements to Mother Mary, from a tooth being yanked out to a knife slicing open a chest: it emerged from his own experiences ‘feeling like the act of making something was physically debilitating’.

‘I always just say it’s a movie about a pop star who needs a dress

‘The process of creating something is a really bizarre and sometimes painful phenomenon. And I’ve spoken to just enough musicians to get a sense of the ways in which going on tour takes my own experiences and puts them to shame,’ he smiles, referencing three-hour, full-bodied performances ‘in which you’re pouring your heart out but also pushing your body to the breaking point’.

It’s not hard to think of who Lowery means here, having previously confirmed he’d been inspired by Taylor Swift’s massive Reputation Stadium Tour concert film. Swift had also dived into her record-breaking 149-show Eras Tour by the time cameras were rolling on Mother Mary in May 2023.

‘My own experiences bordered on the Cronenbergian, and I can only imagine what it’s like for some of these musicians who walk off stage at the end of the night, pull their boots off, and have to look at their feet and be like: “How can I do this again tomorrow, and the next night and the night after that?”

‘I didn’t consciously set out to make a body horror film, but body horror became a part of it because that is just part of what it means to commit to the act of self-expression, not wholeheartedly but whole bodily.’

We can’t ignore that Hathaway also has another movie about to release in The Devil Wears Prada 2, 20 years after the first film.

They may be poles apart in terms of genre and tone (‘I always just say it’s a movie about a pop star who needs a dress,’ Lowery shrugs of trying to encapsulate Mother Mary’s bonkers-ness), but it’s also quite funny that – on the surface – they are both concerned with fashion.

It goes further than that, too, with the link of red fabric and a dress between the two, thanks to the promo for the sequel and the spirit that Mother Mary says she is being haunted by in Lowery’s film.

Although Lowery hasn’t yet seen The Devil Wears Prada 2, he is tickled by the ‘great’ timing.

‘I love that these movies exist in the same universe and are sort of bound by the colour red that probably needs to be transformed into a dress.’

But what he offers Hathaway and her fans in Mother Mary is a movie she’s never done anything like before.

‘The singing and dancing is incredible, and I can’t wait for audiences to experience that. But to watch what she does in close-up is truly exceptional. She can turn a wide shot into a close-up and then to see her and Michaela, who is one of the great artists of her generation, going toe to toe is a gift for anyone who enjoys acting,’ Lowery enthuses.

‘For me, getting to sit there behind the camera and watch the two of them perform together was a luxury I don’t know if I’ll ever experience [again] in this lifetime and I can’t wait for audiences to share in that.’

Mother Mary is in UK cinemas now.

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