If people know me at all, either from my reviews or from conversations we have had, then they will know that I have always pushed back against the dangerous mottos that push family ahead of everything else. Blood may be thicker than water, but both substances can be so toxic that they cause you physical harm. “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family” is just complete nonsense. You can decide who you want to keep close to you, and you can make a family unit from good friends. Arguably worse than all of this stuff, and arguably even more harmful, are all of the little sayings, and Disneyfied brainwashings, that place every mother on a pedestal. Whether it is “mother knows best” or “others can come and go, but your mum is always your mum”, I heartily disagree. Being the son of an abusive alcoholic will colour your views on these things.
Matriarch is a dark, but not entirely unfunny, horror movie from writer-director Ben Steiner, making his feature debut, and it asks viewers to accept an increasingly ridiculous premise that actually works really well in showing how people will put up with a lot of abuse and (micro)aggression over the years just because they have been acclimatized to it by a family unit that has decided upon the overall environment for their upbringing.
Jemima Rooper plays Laura, a young woman hurtling off the rails so quickly, and so seriously, that she ends up heading to the last place she ever thought she would return to. Her family home. Reuniting with her mother, Celia (Kate Dickie), Laura soon starts to suspect that she has made a big mistake. Old wounds are still very easily re-opened, things feel very much like as if they haven’t changed much, and her mother looks a LOT younger than they should. What is going on? Is there something strange happening, or has Laura misremembered major portions of her childhood, perhaps replacing imagery in her drink/drug-addled brain that she is now struggling to correct?
A film that would make a very interesting companion piece to Men, I keep joking that this could have easily been titled #notallmums, Matriarch is a challenging and bravura piece of work. Partly a cold psychological horror, partly a Cronenbergian journey through a womb of darkness, Stein crafts everything nicely in service to a final act that brings everything together beautifully, but will also be far too “out there” for some viewers. He also gets a bonus point for giving the lead character one of the best last lines I can think of from the past decade or two.
Rooper and Dickie are both superb in their roles, although they are playing their characters in a way that amplifies their strain and strangeness, like the fish having a mad turn in an aquarium without considering the humans watching it, spectators who are unable to comprehend whatever is motivating the temporary madness. Sarah Paul and Franc Ashman also do well, and there are other supporting cast members do very good work, but the heart of the film is, obviously, the mother-daughter relationship (lack of relationship?). Rooper and Dickie not only do well in their individual scenes, but excel in scenes that show them “locking horns” and easily finding the weak spots to attack every time tempers start to rise.
Not a film to recommend to people who like their horror to be safer, and to feel more comfortingly familiar, Matriarch is a dark and fantastical way to look at a very real, sadly all-too-common, problem for many. I encourage people to give it a go, but it will certainly prove divisive. If you like it then you can try explaining it to others. If you dislike it then, well, mum’s the word.
8/10
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