By Paul Byrnes
GOODNIGHT MOMMY ★★★
91 minutes, streaming on Amazon Prime Video
To paraphrase Kermit the Frog, it’s not easy doing scream. Horror is one of the most demanding genres, simply because it requires such technical proficiency, especially in controlling point of view. It’s a director’s medium: some are attracted to it because you have to have what musicians call “the chops”.
Goodnight Mommy stars a mysterious mother whose bandages are never explained in the thriller Goodnight Mommy.
Matt Sobel earned some respect in 2015 with his first feature, Take Me to the River, the story of a teenage boy victimised by a hostile community. Goodnight Mommy has tonal similarity but a different origin. It’s a remake of an Austrian film by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.
I haven’t seen the original, but a glance at the trailer makes clear the two films look like twins - same tone, same setting, even some of the same shots. That made me wonder why Sobel wanted to remake it. All directors copy each other, borrowing ideas and even shots, but they rarely do it so early in a promising career or with the purpose of open emulation. The answer might be that Sobel wanted to test his chops.
If you did not know the other film, this English-language version would offer a striking example of his technical proficiency. It’s a well sustained and creepy film about point of view, in which twin brothers, Elias and Lucas, aged about 10, misinterpret the world with disastrous consequences. We see their world through their eyes. Their reality comes from their bond as twins. The rigorous control of point of view provides the scaffolding for that idea.
In practical terms, that means we are never quite sure what’s going on. The twins, played by Nicholas and Cameron Crovetti, come to a grand modern house in the countryside to stay with their mother. They’re horrified to see that mommy (Naomi Watts) now has a facial bandage covering everything except her eyes and lips.
Her bandages are never explained, except to suggest vanity. She is a performer of some sort, used to the limelight. The boys do not understand why anyone would get cosmetic surgery. Small things alarm them: she doesn’t want to sing them to sleep any more, as she always did; she is not as loving or warm. They decide this woman is an impostor.
Watts, using just her eyes and tone of voice, is terrific as a woman seemingly on the edge of madness. The twin boys, poised and soulful, move innocently from one conclusion to another, towards a precipice.
It’s a prescient film, or it would be if the twist in the finale was not so easily guessed. I can’t say it’s better or worse than the original. It’s effectively chilling, rather than terrifying. Why Sobel needed to remake it is a mystery. Making a buck doesn’t really cover it.
Goodnight Mommy steams on Amazon Prime from September.
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