An older woman’s dead body lies on the floor in the opening scene of writer/director Laurence Vannicelli’s Mother, May I? The camera pulls back slowly, revealing a rustic but lived-in cabin near a lake. This is followed by a brisk montage as the body is collected, cleaned, and finally incinerated before the ash is poured into a plastic container and presented to her son, Emmett (Kyle Gallner).
When the funeral director (Michael Giannone) offers his condolences and suggests a more attractive urn for the remains, Emmett promptly declines. Immediately after obtaining the ashes, Emmett and his fiancé Anya (Holland Roden) drive back to the cottage, where Emmett offers the following eulogy: “Thank you for giving me life. And the house.” He then dumps the ashes, without ceremony, into the lake, observing that “She’s fish food” compared to the plastic container that “is gonna last forever.”
These pre-title card scenes quickly establish the strained relationship Emmett had with his mother, while also hinting at the film’s interest in life cycles, resurrection, and the lasting impact of less-than-perfect mother/child relationships.
Mother, May I? is filled with these kinds of curt, unflinching interactions. It’s not a mean movie, per se, but the narrative is heavily reliant on characters being incredibly frank, to the point of being hurtful.
Emmett has inherited the cottage from his dead mother, Tracy, who abandoned him when he was a young boy. He and Anya want to start a family, but they’re both carrying extreme baggage: his “maladaptive coping mechanisms” make him prone to violent outbursts and shutting down. Anya, meanwhile, seems apprehensive about becoming pregnant, especially when her fiancé carries around his pain like an open wound. As a former gifted child, she also has her own mommy issues: her adult relationship with her (never seen) mother has soured and her professional confidence is shaken by unwieldy expectations for her debut novel, which has been in the works for several years.
This is clearly an emotionally turbulent relationship well before a semi-supernatural element is introduced. But then the pair take shrooms and, from that moment on, Anya begins behaving exactly like Tracy. She begins to wear Emmett’s dead mother’s clothing, uses her make-up, is no longer afraid of the water, takes up smoking, and even adopts her vocal inflection.
Emmett is (understandably) unnerved. Is Anya using a cognitive behavioural ploy to make him confront his lingering emotional issues…or has his mother possessed the body of his girlfriend?
Mother, May I? is anchored by incredibly strong performances from both Gallner and Roden. The former brings a simmering anger, hurt and confusion to Emmett, whose metaphor-laden habit of running (away) and desperate need to start a family is clearly a coping mechanism for his abandonment issues.
Roden, meanwhile, gets to play the bigger, showier moments. The Teen Wolf and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions actress completely transforms in order to embody a character we’ve never met, particularly the subtle modulations in her physical and vocal performance. Since Tracy was a dancer, Roden’s movements becomes smoother and more flowy. Since Tracy was a smoker, Roden drops her voice and adopts a slight vocal fry. And where Anya is terrified of swimming, Roden’s Tracy needs to be in the water. The result is so convincing that Tracy becomes a living, breathing character via Anya.
One of the most impressive ways that Vannicelli visually anticipates – and then reinforces – the swap, while also ratcheting up the interpersonal drama, is to have Emmett and Anya engage in a therapeutic technique called “chair reversal.” One partner – say Emmett – sits at the head of the table and states what their problem is, then the two swap places so the other – say Anya – can impersonate them/speak from their perspective.
It’s meant to open a dialogue, but as Anya continues her “performance” and the psychosexual tension grows, Emmett unravels. He begins to succumb to the fantasy that he can understand or even repair his relationship with his deceased mother, inching the film into oddly incestuous territory, despite the fact that he and Anya aren’t related by blood.
The undercurrent that threatens to devour Emmett and Anya’s relationship is supported by Alistair Farrant’s piano and violin score, as well as cinematographer Craig Harmer’s recurrent slow push-ins and the eye-catching pops of colour in Anya-as-Tracy’s costumes.
It all feeds into Mother, May I?s underlying mystery: why did Tracy abandon Emmett as child? As the pair’s trepidation of starting a family and respective parenting issues loom large over every interaction, the truth about Tracy is slowly revealed via her wall of journals, a home video of Emmett’s childhood birthday, and finally Bill (Chris Mulkey), a neighbour with secrets to share.
That the film doesn’t end with a shocking twist or an explosive revelation is in keeping with Vannicelli’s more reflective screenplay, though it may prove too understated and open-ended for some. Additionally, the genre purists will undoubtedly complain that the film is more of a drama than a thriller, despite the simmering undercurrent of violence that permeates every heated interaction between Emmett and Anya, up to and including the climax.
Ultimately the film hinges on the performances of Roden and Gallner and they completely deliver. Mother, May I? is a simmering slow burn, filled with psychosexual tension, quietly devastating moments, and sumptuous visuals.
Mother, May I? is now available on VOD outlets.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.
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