I Am Mother (2019)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Title: I Am Mother

Genre: Thriller, Science Fiction

Director: Grant Sputore

Cast: Hilary Swank, Clara Rugaard-Larsen, Rose Byrne, Luke Hawker, Tahlia Sturzaker, Maddie Lenton, Hazel Sandery, Summer Lenton, Jacob Nolan

Release: 2019-06-07

Runtime: 114

Plot: A teenage girl is raised underground by a robot "Mother", designed to repopulate the earth following an extinction event. But their unique bond is threatened when an inexplicable stranger arrives with alarming news.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

NetfIix Original Films don't generally have an especially high quality standard, but this one was the best pure science fiction film I've seen in a few year, probably since Denis Villeneuve's Arrival.

The movie begins the day after an extinction-level event. A heavily fortified underground facility designed to ensure the continued survival of the human race comes online. A robot, looking roughly like the head of GLaDOS from the Portal game attached to the body of the Robot from the new "Lost in Space", retrieves a frozen embryo from storage and places it into an incubator. 24 hours later, a baby is born.

We see the robot nurse the baby, parent a toddler, and then a young girl. A time jump, and then the action picks up 13,867 days after the extinction-level event. The location is the same, but instead of a small child we find a teenage girl, who would probably be a freshman or sophomore in high school in 2019. She calls the robot Mother, and the robot calls her Daughter. She has been raised by Mother her entire life.

In the days leading up to her final exam, there is a power outage. She finds that a mouse has chewed through some of the wiring. There isn't supposed to be a mouse; nothing is supposed to be alive on the surface. Shortly after the arrival of the mouse, a person follows. This new woman's story doesn't match up at all with what Mother had told Daughter.

All of the characters have American accents, but the film is an Australian production. Daughter is played by Danish actress Clara Rugaard, and she is brilliant as the young woman who has spent her entire life in solitary confinement, the first human to be the product of a robot upbringing. She is smart, insanely well educated, but completely inexperienced at dealing with other human beings. Hillary Swank plays the woman, potentially the last human being not to be the product of a robot upbringing. Rose Byrne is the voice of Mother.

To say any more would be to spoil the film's surprises and secrets. Suffice to say everything is not as it seems at the beginning of the film, but the movie does play fair and everything does align with a certain logic.

 

[mattCR]

I really enjoyoed this one. This was really solid true SciFi.

 

[Scott McGillivray]

I enjoyed it. I am still a bit baffled by the ending. Would love to chat about some spoilers if anyone else is interested.

 

[JohnRice]

I only learned of this movie two days ago and it sounded interesting, so I watched it yesterday. It's definitely an interesting, minimalist movie in the Hard Sci-Fi vein. Thought provoking and initially I thought it might not have much replay value, but now I'd at least like to see it again just to see if it holds up.

I enjoyed it. I am still a bit baffled by the ending. Would love to chat about some spoilers if anyone else is interested.

In the end, the story isn't what a viewer is likely to expect. I wasn't certain I had grasped it correctly, so I watched the final 20 minutes again. It doesn't quite spell everything out so there is room for debate regarding some of the details, but I think the essence of it all is fairly clear.