The term folk horror inspires certain kinds of imagery: pastoral fields, shrouded woods, period pieces, and witchcraft. In North American horror, legends tend to take the form of tall tales (Urban Legend, Candyman, I Know What You Did Last Summer) or whispered myths (Wendigos, Indigenous burial grounds, etc).
In Irish writer/director’s Kate Dolan’s directorial feature debut, however, folklore takes the form of a Changeling, an uncanny doppelganger that looks exactly like a loved one, but whose intent is malicious. Like many domestic horror films, You Are Not My Mother locates true terror within the familial unit, reframing familiar domestic territories like bathrooms and bedrooms as unfamiliar sites of danger.
Char (Hazel Doupe) is a gifted high school student whose life isn’t great. She has no friends at school, and she’s being bullied by mean girls Suzanne (Jordanne Jones) and Kelly (Katie White). Most significantly, her mother Angela (Carolyn Bracken) is going through another “down mood”, which is code for depression, as evidenced by Angela’s struggle to get out of bed or perform tasks like drive Char to school or pick up groceries.
One particularly frustrating day, when her mother nearly crashes the car in a dazed state and Char angrily tells her off, Angela goes missing. Eventually Angela is discovered safe and unhurt and, for a brief period when she takes her medication, Angela seems fine. But Char starts to notice her mother’s odd behavior, and grandma Rita (Ingrid Craigie) and uncle Aaron (Paul Reid) are careful to ensure that mother and daughter are rarely alone together.
Clearly something is wrong with Angela and, as her chief object of interest, Char is in danger.
The concept of a Changeling in horror isn’t new (another Irish film, The Hole in the Ground, explores it to great effect, and Canadian film The Wretched is a variation of it). Dolan’s film, however, gets plenty of mileage out of a familiar tale by situating it within the context of a female coming of age story, as well as a consideration of the damage and stigma of mental illness.
Char loves her mother, so the teenager has reason to protect her mother’s privacy. There are repeated references to the family’s history of unusual behavior among the town’s gossips and Angela has a well-known history of mental health struggles, which is why complaints about Angela’s behavior aren’t taken seriously by police. Even when Char is offered help from Ms. Devlin (Jade Jordan), a kindly teacher at school, the girl opts to downplay the burgeoning tragedy and remain quiet.
The only person Char confides in is Suzanne, who becomes her friend and confidant after realizing that she and Char both come from damaged homes (their burgeoning friendship is one of the film’s few happy developments and it’s a reminder of how nice female friendships can be in YA stories). Even when the film traffics in familiar young adult tropes about mean girls (armed here with hairspray and lighters), Dolan’s script nimbly side-steps cliché and quickly re-centers the true source of horror back at home.
Unfortunately there’s no reprieve from mother, and Angela’s increasingly erratic behavior quickly moves into dangerous territory. Not unlike Ruth Paxton’s A Banquet, this is a female written and directed genre film at TIFF that holds a lens up to the domestic sphere and finds both beauty and horror in its seemingly mundane glory.
In Dolan’s version, the aesthetic is much more homey and lived-in: this is a multi-generational home with all of the knick knacks to show. It is the introduction of an otherworldly figure that poisons and corrupts, rendering previously safe spaces into threats. The bathroom is equated with self-harm; bedroom doors offer both protection and imprisonment; and the living room becomes the site of a horrifying dance sequence (credit Bracken’s unrelenting physicality for this stand-out sequence). With nowhere to go and limited allies, the burden of survival falls to Char, who must embrace her sick mother’s advice to fight back – against the bullies who pick on her and the mother who has far more murderous intentions.
It is only appropriate that the film takes place during the festival of Samhain, when the line between the spirit world and the real world is thin and a bonfire can serve multiple purposes. In You Are Not My Mother, fire opens and closes the film: it offers literal illumination about a person’s true character, as well as the possibility of destruction and rebirth.
These are ripe metaphors for Dolan to play with and despite telling a familiar tale, the film is always beguiling and captivating. Partnered with exceptional performances from Doupe (quiet, but layered) and Bracken (legitimately terrifying), You Are Not My Mother is an assured, confident and exciting debut.
