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‘Mother’s Baby’ Review: A Paranoid Postpartum Thriller That Very Nearly Delivers
If not for a few ill-conceived decisions toward the end, Johanna Moder’s jet-black motherhood comedy would be the perfect genre thriller.
It floats its oddball ideas through strange happenings and surreal exchanges with minor characters who exit the frame (and the story at large) after serving their purpose, but its numerous possibilities are anchored by Leuenberger’s wonderfully measured performance. By the end, however, “Mother’s Baby” makes the odd decision to switch its primary mode of expression to something far more definitive and literal (or at least, literal-minded), even though on paper one can’t reasonably conclude that it depicts either the full-picture of reality, or a total and complete break from it. Then again, that so much of the movie works up until this point is a miraculous feat, one that — alongside Sundance premiere and fellow Berlin competition title “If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You” — signals an intriguing evolution of pregnancy and motherhood horror, toward something more hauntingly internal and psychological, and in the process, wildly entertaining.
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