MOTHER MARY

Here is the decision, plainly. MOTHER MARY is a psychological drama and ghost story that a real director and a serious cast have poured craft into — but it arrives fused to occult content that Movieguide judges abhorrent, and there's no reason to give it your evening.

The film pairs Christian symbolism with the occult: a séance that summons a red ghost, a half-hearted exorcism, and a title character who appropriates the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene to build her stage persona. Add nine strong obscenities and profanities, uncomfortable hints of lesbian lust, and a slow, obtuse story that never quite comes together, and the picture is complete.

So our answer is simple: skip it. There is nothing here that repays the cost to your time or your conscience.

An iconic pop star known as Mother Mary is preparing her comeback performance. On its eve, she reunites with Sam — short for Samantha — the estranged best friend and former costume designer she cast aside a decade ago.

Mary wants Sam to design one new dress, the kind that once captured the vision they shared at the start. But the reunion drags long-buried wounds to the surface, and the two women find their conflict interrupted by something neither of them can explain.

Two stars, and here is what they mean. MOTHER MARY is a slow slog, a film so preoccupied with character and design that it forgets to build a story. The plot is thin, the pacing sluggish, and the whole thing plays as obtuse — especially for a general moviegoer who isn't steeped in the world of pop stars and their costume designers.

The mystical encounters with the red ghost keep interrupting rather than deepening the drama, and even the songs are hard to make out. The result is confusing more than compelling. Whatever ambitions the filmmakers brought, the movie lands as a muddle.

MOTHER MARY carries a strong pagan worldview, and its central problem is a fusion the film never earns the right to attempt: Christian imagery married to the occult with no spiritual, moral, or biblical foundation. The title character borrows the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene to construct her persona — she even performs with a costumed halo — while the film's real spiritual weather is something else entirely.

That "something else" is the red ghost, an amorphous figure like a piece of silky red cloth that haunts both women and seems to possess the pop star. It arrives through a séance and is confronted in an exorcism ceremony. The ghost is meant to symbolize Sam's anger and hurt and Mary's guilt — a piece of pop psychology some viewers will find shallow — but dressed in occult ritual, the symbolism curdles.

The film also carries uncomfortable, vague hints of lesbian lust between the two women, unrequited or not.

One note on the film as a work: its title character clearly draws on pop stars like Madonna and Lady Gaga, and lesser-known artists like Annie Clark. It's worth remembering that Madonna's own name evokes Mary the Mother of Jesus even as her image fused that reverence with sex — the same borrowing this movie repeats.

Scripture refuses that fusion outright. "There shall not be found among you anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes... or a necromancer" (Deuteronomy 18:10–11). A halo borrowed for a stage costume cannot cover a story built on séance and spirits.

MOTHER MARY has serious talent behind and in front of the camera, but it's a slow, confusing drama that weds Christian imagery to séances, spirits, and an exorcism ritual — with harsh language and homosexual content besides. Our answer stays the same: skip it. For an evening better spent, start with our latest family-friendly picks.