Ma (Tate Taylor)

[TGM]

MA

Director: Tate Taylor

imdb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7958736/?ref_=nv_sr_4?ref_=nv_sr_4)

[Ivan Drago]

I wanted to like this so much more than I actually did, because the concept is interesting, and Octavia Spencer's lead performance is tremendous. But this movie's horror movie premise is done in the style of a domestic drama and the tones never mesh. The teen actors weren't good and the constant flashbacks led to a weak, predictable reveal.

[Grouchy]

Pretty good stuff. Octavia Spencer rocks and the thriller beats progress along nicely. It's always great to see Juliette Lewis in anything. One thing this movie made me think about is that I really dislike gradual progresions of flashbacks telling a larger story. It seems really artificial to me and "directed" in a bad way. Another recent example was Laura Dern's character seemingly taking weeks to read her teenage diaries in The Tale. So since the last act of this movie requires us to have at least some degree of sympathy for Ma, I think they should have dropped her entire story in one single flashback, maybe while she was waiting for Ben at the pub.

[Dukefrukem]

I liked Spencer in this a lot- and would have liked this a lot more if the story was told ONLY by the perspective of the kids, but they added in a backstory element with flashbacks and a couple of standalone Luke Evan's scenes that make it seem like everything was planned from the beginning. It didn't need the backstory element at all- it would have worked perfectly fine as a psychological thriller. Then there's the reveal of the Ma's daughter and he role as hero feels totally lazy. Na.