I Am Mother (4 Stars)

This is a feminocentric film that fails the Bechdel test on a technicality. There are only women in the film, and they never talk about men, but one of them isn't named. Nobody said the test is perfect.

This is an Australian science fiction mystery. It takes place in a distant (or maybe not so distant) future when the human race has died out in a global catastrophe. In a scientific complex a robot has been entrusted with 63,000 frozen human embryos. The robot hatches one of the female embryos and brings it up to adulthood. The robot calls itself Mother, and the child is called Daughter. She's never allowed to leave the building. When Daughter asks why the other embryos haven't been hatched, Mother says that it needs practise at parenting, so one child was raised first, and the others will come later.

Everything is idyllic until one day when Daughter hears someone banging on the door. She opens the door and a woman stumbles in who's suffering from a gunshot wound. The unnamed woman sows seeds of doubt in Daughter's mind. She says that Mother is malicious and has been lying to her all her life. Daughter finds out that Mother has indeed been keeping secrets from her, but the woman doesn't seem to be honest either. Who should she trust?

This is a very suspenseful story, an example of how a mystery should be told. From the early scenes of the film onwards we're given hints that all is not as perfect as it seems, and we slowly discover the truth through Daughter's eyes. It's a slow moving film with only occasional action, but it isn't boring for one moment. The two women deliver excellent performances, Clara Rugaard as Daughter and Hilary Swank as the unnamed woman. Hilary Swank is different to any other role I've seen her in. She effectively portrays a neurotic woman.

The only thing that bothered me about the film was the religious references. The woman is obviously Catholic, and it seems that the symbolism of the Virgin Mary as an alternative mother is relevant, but the idea is never fleshed out.

"I Am Mother" has been released by Netflix in America and Britain, but it's being shown in cinemas in most other countries. I'm glad I live in Germany and could see it on a big screen. It has a cinematic beauty which would be lost on a smaller screen.