The Mother Review: Starring Jennifer Lopez as the nameless titular character, the American action thriller received a direct to OTT premiere on Netflix on May 12, 2023. It has been directed by Niki Caro, with a story written by Misha Green, who also completed the screenplay with Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig. Other actors starring alongside Lopez include Joseph Fiennes as Adrian Lovell, Omari Hardwick as William Cruise, Gael Garcia Bernal as Hector Álvarez, Paul Raci as Jons and Lucy Paez as Zoe.
The movie has a runtime of 1 hour 57 minutes.
The Mother Review Does Not Contain Spoilers
The Mother Review: Discussion
Turning every woman spy into the likes of John Wick, Jason Bourne and others seems to be the new trend in Hollywood. From the get go the movie reminded me of yet another action flick starring Allison Janney that released last year on Netflix – Lou. With the same Alaskan, snow-clad landscape, at the centre of which stands a stoic woman who’s an assassin, JLo’s Mother might as well be Lou’s friend in a different universe.
In what seems like a formulaic blend of a story heard before, The Mother doesn’t even care to name the titular main character and contains her identity within to assure you that the character you’re seeing on-board is in fact a mother. Starting off with an action-packed scene that sets the tone and premise of the revenge track that follows ahead, we meet a pregnant mother who’s well aware that an attack on her is imminent.
And so walks in Fiennes as Adrian Lovell, an ex-SAS, with whom she also shared a romantic track of sorts. He stabs her belly while she returns the favour by blowing him up with a chemical concoction of a blast that mutilates half of his face, granting him the quintessential look of a B-grade villain as always.
However, he’s not the only baddie here. Gael Garcia Bernal takes time off from his Marvel duties and playing the friendly neighbourhood Werewolf by Night to step in as the second bad guy in the film, who’s yet another possible candidate of being the baby daddy in question. However, the story doesn’t even try to pull us in or interest us with this side of the Mother’s life.
Once you press the play button, you know that Jennifer Lopez is the only reason why you’re watching this film at all. Seeing her kicking everybody’s butts is a refreshing vision from her usual choice of partaking in goofy rom-coms. Yet that same “refreshing” thought doesn’t breathe any life into the movie that only keeps up a noir-ish dark-toned cinematography for the most part. There’s simply no light in the first few scenes. Even increasing the brightness on your screen is not enough. Thankfully, for us, her mission soon flies her off to Cuba, and lightens up the colour palette as well.
After the aforementioned first action scene, Lopez’s character has to reluctantly give up her child to foster services, as that seems to be the only logical way of protecting her in the future. And since she helped save Omari Hardwick’s character earlier, his indebted self agrees to report to her about her daughter’s (Lucy Paez) well-being every now and then. Years later, he pulls her out of her Alaskan hibernation when her daughter’s life is endangered, whose instincts kick in instantly and let her know who her biological mother is.
A lot of action happens mid-way and it eventually requires them to retreat back to her safe place in the snowy land, but with her daughter this time. Paez plays an adorable 13-year old, who’s then pulled into a crash course of fending for herself, which makes room for some mother-daughter bonding time.
Amidst all of this, a symbolic side plot of a mother wolf protecting her pups plays parallel to that of JLo’s story, and adds some meaningful depth to an otherwise missed opportunity. The plot is stereotypical in terms of clinging on to Afghanistan’s name and fuelling its stock usage in spy movies, which somehow also seems to wrap up her backstory with the two unconvincing villains, who have just as cliched portrayals as you can expect.
Even the whole foster parents scene seems to have been included for the looks of it, with only the mother speaking to ‘The Mother’ – reflecting the same story of the wolf family missing a father as well.
The Mother: Final Thoughts
With Mother’s Day in sight, you can switch on this movie to watch with your mothers if you’d like, but mind you, the only best takeaway of the film is Jennifer Lopez. She’s never looked better working on such action choreographies. As far as the switch from her common wedding film choices goes, this film definitely allows her to break the mould and push the limits. But otherwise, the movie in itself is just a mess that makes a batter out of so many familiar tropes and notions of thrillers that it has no identity of itself.
The Mother is now streaming on Netflix.
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