THE MOTHER (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

The Mother, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 12, 2023

There's probably a better version of The Mother somewhere between the lines of the movie we actually get. The one presented here by director Niki Caro is mostly about following the straight lines of some typical action fodder.

In that regard, the movie does possess one undeniable strength in Jennifer Lopez, who stars as the eponymous, unnamed mother. The character is also a military veteran, who excelled as a crack-shot sniper during multiple tours in the Middle East, and a woman haunted by the consequences of trying to make a living in the illegal arms trade. Lopez certainly has tried to become an action star at various points over her career, and just as she has evolved as an actor during that period, she makes a pretty good case that has grown into this type of role, as well. There's a hard edge, some roughly earned wisdom, and, when her character isn't running and driving and fighting and shooting her way through multiple bad guys, a pool of considered stillness to Lopez's performance here.

The story itself opens with a rather harrowing scene, too, in which Lopez's character is in hiding and being questioned at an FBI safe house. She's coming forward with information about a couple of arms dealers with whom she has been associated. Just as it becomes clear that the feds aren't prepared for just how much those men want her dead, bullets pop through the windows with deadly precision, leaving her to fend for herself against Adrian (Joseph Fiennes), her former business partner and lover. Around that point, we also learn that our protagonist is a very-soon-to-be mother.

The real premise of Andrea Berloff, Peter Craig, and Misha Green's screenplay has the FBI forcing the woman to give her parental rights to the newborn baby girl, since the child will be in constant danger if she stay with the mother—whom we might as well start referring to as "the Mother," as the credits do, at this point, no matter how awkward it will be. None of this makes much sense, except that it's a more convoluted hook for a story than the much simpler one that this tale eventually becomes anyway.

Twelve years after nearly being killed by Adrian and allowing the FBI to turn her daughter over to a foster family, the Mother has been living an isolated life in Alaska, with help from fellow veteran Jons (Paul Raci, doing quite a bit with very little). Over the years, our protagonist has been receiving annual updates about her daughter from Agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick), whom the Mother saved during that safehouse assault. She receives an unexpected message from Cruise asking her to meet him. As it turns out, Adrian and/or her other partner/lover Hector (Gael García Bernal) have discovered Zoe (Lucy Paez), the Mother's daughter, and are looking for revenge or something.

Much of what follows in the first act isn't unique or particularly compelling, as the Mother has to use her assorted skills of shooting, fighting, running, driving, and infiltrating heavily guarded compounds to find and rescue the abducted Zoe. The mission takes her, as well as Cruise (who has gotten to know the girl, which seems like a massive, unaddressed error in judgment under the circumstances), from the suburbs of Ohio to Cuba.

In both places, the Mother shows a rather dangerous level of confidence in her sniping abilities by shooting into crowded, public spaces. Caro stages the action sequences with a level of clarity, but that only amplifies how reckless our protagonist can be, as well as how convenient/contrived many of the beats within the scenes are.

After the routine of the first act, the movie slows down considerably, and while this section is also filled with familiarity, it's worthy of some appreciation. Basically, mother and daughter, who have never known each other and who aren't willing to fully acknowledge the truth of their relationship, have to go into hiding. The Mother teaches Zoe how to survive, be tough, and remain calmly aware under the pressure of whatever might come for her in the future.

Obviously, all of this is doing the work of setting the foundation for a climactic standoff, setting one of the villains and his henchmen against the mother-daughter duo. If Lopez has convinced us she can be an action star with all of those moves in the first act, though, she's more intriguing in grounding this character as someone who can only communicate her feelings through the seeming contradiction of being an unforgiving trainer. Like the most interesting parts of this story, the Mother's tenderness exists beneath the surface of what we see.

Inevitably, more routine and formula take over the proceedings, but over the course of that middle section, we catch some glimpses of the story The Mother actually wants to tell. Maybe that's not entirely true about the filmmakers' desire, but it is definitely more in line with the better story it could have told.

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