Mother, may I? (3 Stars)

This is the 13th film in the Stuttgart Nights Festival.

It's an eerie psychological thriller that divided the cinema audience. Some people that I spoke to loved it, while others hated it. My opinion is somewhere in the middle.

Emmett's mother has just died. She abandoned him when he was six years old. He can hardly remember her. Now he's inherited the beautiful old house where she used to live alone. He wants to tidy it up and sell it as quickly as possible. He takes his fiancée Anya with him to the house.

Anya's mother is a psychotherapist, and Anya wants to help him, so she practises an unusual form of therapy with him which she's learnt from her mother. They sit down, facing one another, and Anya asks questions for 60 seconds. They set a timer. Then they exchange roles. Emmett pretends to be Anya, Anya pretends to be Emmett, and Emmett asks Anya questions as if she were Emmett. They do this therapeutic session several times during the first half of the film.

But the actual story is about Anya. As they stay in the house, Anya begins to believe that she's Emmett's mother. She puts on Emmett's mother's clothes and she talks like her. It's not just pretence. Things happen that can't be faked. Anya could never swim, but she's suddenly a perfect swimmer. She keeps a diary, and Emmett discovers that she now has the exact same handwriting as his mother used to have. Anya refuses to let the house be sold, because she says it's her house.

It's a strange film. The person sitting next to me said it was the worst film in the festival. I disagree.