‘The Good Mother’ Movie Review: A Compelling Drama But An Obvious Thriller
Photo from Vertical
From Jeremy Kibler
Slickly made and well-acted, The Good Mother shifts between being a gritty, character-driven drama about addiction and then a crime thriller with a big ol’ twist. Writer-director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and co-writer Madison Harrison, both Albany natives, try getting their arms around a lot for their story set in their hometown in 2016. If the film doesn’t really say anything too revelatory concerning the opioid crisis, gun violence, alcoholism, and corruption, that doesn’t make it any less engrossing.
Hilary Swank gives it her all as Marissa Bennings, an Albany journalist who numbs her grief with alcohol. She is the titular “good mother,” but her two sons have grown up worlds apart. Her one son, Michael (Madison Harrison, who co-wrote the script) is a criminal and an opioid addict, tied up in dealing heroin, coke and fentanyl. Her other son, Toby (Jack Reynor), is a police officer. When Toby brings Marissa the news that Michael has been murdered in what looks like a deal gone wrong, it seems the mother has already been grieving. At Michael’s funeral, Michael’s girlfriend Paige (Olivia Cooke), a recovering junkie, comes back into the picture — she’s pregnant.
In a more convincing (and less sentimental) progression than this will sound, Marissa and Paige unite in their grief for Michael but also have their suspicions about who killed Michael. While they let the police investigate, they get a jump on the case. Swank is very good here as Marissa, effortlessly convincing as a woman whose life is in a constant state of hangovers and devastation. Cooke is also terrific as Paige, who’s much more sympathetic than Marissa initially makes her out to be, and a solid Jack Reynor brings a restrained bitterness as Toby. The tense, prickly dynamic between all three is the most interesting element here, and all three powerful performers sell it.
Director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte brings a real sense of place that never feels prettified or phonily grimy. In a scene where Paige accompanies Marissa to an AA meeting (led by a one-scene-only Larry Fessenden), a fellow mother (Karen Aldridge) tells her story about finding her daughter’s body, and it hits a raw nerve. The following scene at a safe injection site also hasn’t really been represented in film before, but that compelling nugget of an idea gets shortchanged as soon as it’s back to the plot.
Once the murder mystery at hand becomes increasingly more obvious, the film does become more of a pedestrian potboiler hinging on a plot twist for the same character motivations we’ve seen many times over. The fact that a newborn gets carried along in a bassinet during a slow-walk chase is kind of silly, too. Finally, that ending; the implications of it are complex and untidy but not exactly satisfying on a story level. The Good Mother might have benefited from being longer (these days, that’s a rare wish), but with a little more breathing room, a pretty good movie could have been a great one.
Rating: 3/5
The Good Mother is currently in theaters.
