The Good Mother

Director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte's decent little crime drama "The Good Mother" is spoiled by the screenplay he co-wrote with Madison Harrison (their second such collaboration) having too obvious a 'twist' and too ambiguous an ending. In 2016 Albany, hard drinking journalist Hilary Swank loses her youngest son (an addict) to an apparently drug-related drive-by shooting - which she gets drawn into investigating with his pregnant girlfriend Olivia Cooke (good) and her other son Jack Reynor (always good) who's a cop (married to Dilone). Facts & loyalties fudge as the simple tale winds to its conclusion, which is ultimately, as said... too ambiguous.

I try my best to believe that we are not running out of good ideas. There are many mystery thriller films that have gone through the public gauntlet to become glowing examples and stand the test of time. One hopes that as the craft evolves, so would the creative minds of filmmakers, and new and unique stories would be told, right?

The Good Mother answers this question with a flavorless, underwhelming "no". This film had a solid hand drawn - gifted with blocks that would have built a sturdy body of fiction, with an all too relatable core theme for many people. Instead, all sense of pacing, rhythm, and even coherent storytelling are set aside in favor of something that would barely survive on Lifetime. The loss of a loved one in such a tragic manner should feel like a crushing vortex of grief that seemingly absorbs the world. This sense of loss in this film is not only nearly undetectable, but almost laughably tone deaf in execution. Between the nonsequitur plot points that are unceremoniously dropped to the painfully boring pace, the talented cast could not breathe life into this story.

Through the slog, however, one scene protruded through the mound of disturbed ground as a glowing moment in the story - the support group scene. Karen Aldridge's performance as Laurie is visceral. As the scene pulls our full attention to her, she recants the loss of her daughter to an overdose. Her pain is crushing, and the emotions which race across her face and pound her psyche to be released are quietly commanding our emotions. This was Aldridge's moment, and her powerful monologue was gifted to us with might that is deserving of a much better movie.

I remain optimistic that I will go into suspense thrillers with an open mind, and that my experience will be unique and enjoyable. The Good Mother perpetuates the self-fulfilling prophecy of mediocrity that has soiled the genre over the last decade. I often say that all movies are worth a viewing - I still believe this. However, the silver lining is that you can stop watching anytime.

It's not a bad movie, but whether we like it or not there is a style of movie that we are now used to seeing on the big screen and a style of movie that we are used to seeing at home.

Not just the Marvel movies but Horror movies, expensive sci-f films and comedies are more for the theatre atmosphere. The Good Mother feels like the type of movie that I'm deciding whether to pay for when it comes up on my Amazon Prime Video account.

I don't want it to seem like i did not like the movie. It was a good crime drama, that had some pretty good acting. It was a slow drama that went by too fast, but it was a cool story to unravel, and I would recommend paying the money to see it in the comfort of your own home.

This is a super slow burn. I typically like it slow and sexy, but the general writing and obvious lack of real life experiences on the subject matter was obvious. The writing was just not up to the level of the talent.

If the writer(s) don't know the real world of drugs then they should have focused on the other theme of the mother getting back to her life as a writer (I assume they should know a few things about that).

I was initially drawn in with the expectation that it would be about the mother getting her life back. That's not what happened. There was the typical movie plot twist with an ending that left you not knowing the choice made.

Just because they promote From the three-time Academy Award-nominated producer of The Wolf of Wall Street and Two-time Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank doesn't mean a thing when you hire amateur writers and director.

This entire film was underwhelming, slow and convoluted. The normally comfortable 89 min runtime felt endless with the long dragged out and mostly unnecessary scenes and poor pacing. There were far too many filmmaking mistakes, and director co-writer Miles Joris-Peyrafitte also failed to direct his cast properly, because Swank seemed like she'd rather be somewhere else and call in her lines, than in this mess.