Movie Review--I Am Mother

"What happens next is up to you . . . but I made you the woman you are today."
--Mother, I Am Mother


I Am Mother stands out for several reasons, partly because its production values are of a high quality and partly because of its abnormally small cast.  Even other movies that take place in very limited locations like The Autopsy of Jane Doe and the original Saw usually have more than three characters.  It is not that there are supporting characters that only appear in I Am Mother for several scenes; besides a baby that is introduced for several scenes, there are literally only three characters in the entire movie.  For this alone, its successful storytelling is noteworthy.  It is wholly based around a droid named Mother who has raised a girl she calls Daughter inside of a secure facility after an apocalyptic phenomenon.


Production Values

That the practical and computer-based effects are superb does not eclipse the fact that I Am Mother is carried from start to finish by its small handful of strong central performances.  Rose Byrne (X-Men: First Class, Knowing) skillfully provides the cold but soothing voice for Mother, a seemingly sentient, humanoid machine that raises Daughter, the only human living in the facility other than a horde of stored embryos.  The effects for Mother are excellent, as the machine frame looks very lifelike in motion and at rest.

Hillary Swank plays the stranger who appears outside of Mother's safe haven, a character motivated by desperation, fear, and loss, and she offers a very skillful performance, just as Rose Byrne does, even if Hillary's is physical and vocal.  Thanks to Clara Ruggard-Larson, who takes the role of Daughter, the recent influx of films with great child actors (Logan, Doctor Sleep, and the It movies being prime examples) includes I Am Mother.


Story

Spoilers!

"Daughter," a human cared for by the machine called Mother, has lived inside of a sealed facility for her entire life.  Mother refers to a contagion that has decimated the human population outside, saying it is unsafe to wander beyond the structure.  However, a woman eventually shows up at the door seeking shelter, saying their are droids outside the compound that have eradicated many humans.  Daughter is told by the newcomer and by Mother that the other is full of deception--and the stranger turns out to be correct.


Intellectual Content

There are several obvious themes that appear in I Am Mother, the two clearest being yet another warning of the hypothetical danger AI could pose to humanity and the pro-life ideas that appear later in the movie.  Regarding the latter, onscreen text at the beginning distinguishes between the number of embryos and the number of humans in the facility, whereas Daughter later refers to the embryos as brothers and sisters when she fears they are unsafe with Mother.  Perhaps the most foundational and important issue related to the movie, however, is the problematic approach to "making" humans better taken by Mother.

Mother thinks having children read books (digital or not) and regurgitate information in exams equates to raising intelligent and morally sound kids.  Even if it was easy to make someone a more intelligent and ethical person with one's words alone, though, it would be unintelligent of that person to not engage in autonomous thinking.  Neither formal education nor any other form of social learning is an epistemological savior; alignment with reason alone, which cannot be fully embraced apart from a foundation of autonomy, makes people more intelligent.  Only each individual can decide if or when they want to consult reason itself and break free from whatever social conditioning they might be entrapped by.


Conclusion

In an era dominated by franchises, ensemble casts, and extensive CGI (none of which are the blight on cinema that some fallacious critics have implied or said they are), I Am Mother makes the most of its self-contained premise, its trio of talented actresses, and its minimalistic setting.  Moreover, it is an intelligent movie that even manages to defy a common trope in science fiction and fantasy (though I will refrain from elaborating here so as not to spoil anything more).  Few scripts that feature such a small number of characters seem to make the transition into successful, finished movies.  Fortunately for Netflix, I Am Mother is one of them.


Content:
 1.  Violence:  A small handful of scenes contain gunfire or brawls, but nothing is shown that would even begin to push the boundaries of the PG-13 rating.