You Are Not My Mother (2022) Folk Horror Terror in Working Class Ireland (VOD Review)

Irish eyes are certainly not smiling in this tale of domestic horror as ancient Irish folklore creeps its way into the twenty-first century. You are not My Mother’s first time director & writer Kate Dolan delivers a fantastically creepy story, aided by wonderfully strong leading women and a subtlety rarely seen in modern horror.

The film opens cryptically, as a gurgling baby sits in a buggy in the middle of the road in the dark and is soon wheeled off to the woods, where it’s placed in a fire and seemingly burned alive. Cut to teenager Char (a wonderfully authentic and complex performance from Hazel Doupe), living with her grandmother Rita (Ingrid Craigie) and her mother Angela (Carolyn Braken) who is suffering from some kind of heavy depression. This has made Char older than her years and her high intelligence means she has also been advanced by a year in school, leading Char to cut a rather lonely figure. Locals also seem to recognise the family as ‘different’ and largely stay away, isolating them further. When Angela fails to come home after leaving Char to school in a dazed state, Rita and Char exchange worried glances as the police question her history and it’s suggested she’s done this before. Uncle Aaron (Paul Reid) hovers around providing little solace. Char is bullied in school by a particularly nasty gang of bitchy girls, adding to her isolation, but one of the girls, Suzanne (Jordanne Jones) finds common ground with Char as her mother struggled with mental health issues before her death years before – defies the wishes of her father and befriends Char. Angela eventually returns, still dazed and in receipt of fresh medication, to the relief of her family, but she’s a changed woman – happier and more spontaneous.

The whole family are suspicious of the new Angela – is it the pills: are the strange and sometimes supernatural events Char spots real, or just her imagination? Angela seems very keen to get Char alone, suggesting a trip away and following her around town, coincidently saving her from the school bullies. Rita shares Char’s suspicion of Angela but her theory is that supernatural forces are at play and taps into ancient Irish folklore, long-forgotten but still felt by these residents of modern-day inner-city Dublin. With Halloween approaching, Char discovers with horror the truth behind her mother’s strange behaviour and how it relates to her past, as well as accepting what she must do to save her and her mother from unknown malign forces.

“Families are the scariest thing on the planet” is a line uttered by bully turned bestie Suzanne and if this film had a strapline, that would be it. Char unwittingly lives in her own horror film – her 1970’s decorated tiny terraced house is inhabited by witchy grandmother Rita, full of secrets and talisman and her mother Angela, an oppressive force that frightens Char while haunting her with memories of happier times from her youth. Despite the horror, director Dolan does a great job of portraying the teenage condition, there’s a ‘Ladybird’ type film in her future, but here, teen angst sits alongside domestic drama about mental illness and its rippling effects.

That question is prevalent as Angela starts to display her changed personality – maybe all that’s happening is the pills have started working? While a tense dinner scene hints that all isn’t quite right with Angela, the potential that the lithium prescribed after her disappearance is responsible makes Char question her grandmother’s supernatural explanations, despite witnessing some seriously weird events. Angela pulling food from her stomach in a gruesome scene and later happily walking into a fast-flowing local river scares and exasperates Char, she is a long term victim of her mother’s illness and isn’t prepared to admit the otherworldly nature of events until it can’t be denied. This isn’t a gory film. Its lo-fi horror is used effectively, moments are more shocking because they are few and far between and the film’s scares are all the better for it – a scene involving a mirror had me let out a yelp – and I was left satisfied rather than overwhelmed.

The concept of a film’s protagonist questioning their nearest and dearest’s identity has been done many times in horror, recent Austrian standout ‘Goodnight Mommy’ hinged on unreliable narration and while this film has a similar subject matter, it’s much more grounded as our main character Char acts as the audience trying to work out if the world her grandmother describes should even be considered as an explanation for her mother’s confusing behaviour. The folklore is solid, the concept of ‘changelings’ being rooted in Irish tradition and Dolan doesn’t get too deep in the weeds about why or who these beings are, meaning she isn’t hampered in her storytelling. It’s an economical film with a small cast and the film makes good use of the industrial estate Char’s family lives within, almost trapping her within it. The Halloween setting felt unnecessary at first as we aren’t dealing with ghouls here, but was weaved into an important aspect of the film’s climax. Some leaps were taken in the narrative, especially with the level of cruelty displayed by the bullies, but nothing that detracts from the film’s enjoyment.

For a debut, Kate Dolan knocked it out of the park. This film deserves attention and its accolades and I’d love to see the director do more in this genre. While Hollywood still favours depictions of Ireland as full of raven-haired beauties, twinkly-eyed old men with good faerie magic in the air, homegrown films like this tend to show the reality of parts of modern Ireland as industrial and working class, so it makes sense that this worlds faerie magic would be dark, scary and always bubbling under the surface.

YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER – DAVID’S ARCHIVE