Another solid arty combination of psychological drama and horror is coming to us from Ireland, and “You Are Not My Mother” is also a debut feature film for screenwriter and director Kate Dolan. It is a film that is characterized by a constantly uncomfortable and even creepy atmosphere, and the plot develops quite slowly. In the same house in a poor part of Dublin live three women – grandmother Rita, mother Angela and daughter Char (increasingly busy Hazel Doupe), a withdrawn and silent teenager who seems to have no friends. The hard-to-move grandmother almost never leaves the house, the depressed mom barely gets out of bed, and Char acts as the most responsible person in the house. That this family is hiding a dark secret is clear to us from the eerie prologue whose explanation we will get before the end of the film.
It is a film that quite solidly mixes an almost typical island social drama about social outsiders with psychological horror, and the dynamics in the family will change when one day Angela disappears. A few days later, she will return, but although physically the same, she will be a completely different person in character, and as the name of the film suggests, Char will become apparent that it is no longer her mother. It all seems quite claustrophobic, dark, at times confusing and mysterious, and gives Dolan some hints of occultism, witchcraft and paganism with which this family is obviously connected for generations.
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