‘Other Mom’ Review: Jessica Chastain in Half-Baked Horror

After 2013 Mom and 2024 The maternal instinctJessica Chastain returns once again to the Matri-verse for one last work in Other moma demonic horror about a not-so-imaginary and not-so-friendly imaginary friend. Directed by Rob Savage (Host, The bogeyman) and written by Nathan Elston (based on the novel by Josh Malerman Incidents around the house), Other mom is a whimsical, sometimes frightening portrait of a young child facing domestic strife while being stalked by a nefarious entity.

It’s a clever idea to anthropomorphize a child’s feeling that something is wrong in their family unit. Too often it is assumed that toddlers are not capable of perceiving what is going on around them, but of course they are constantly broadcasting information and can be very sensitive to waves of discord and furtive whispers of secrets, even if they do not fully understand their meaning. In the case of 7-year-old Bela (talented newcomer Arabella Olivia Clark), a vague discord surrounds her parents’ marriage. Mom Ursula (Chastain) is busy with her career and leaves mostly childcare to her husband, Russell (Jay Duplass), a goofy, fun-loving dad who seems a little sad around his wife. Ursula and Russell are tense and stuck together; A few contextual clues soon reveal what is ailing in their union.

Because Ursula is often out doing mysterious things (like her work, and maybe something else), Bela entertains herself by talking and playing with something she calls Other Mom, a spirit or demon that resembles Ursula, but is more affectionate and affectionate than the absent-minded, colder real thing. Well, at least we’re told that Other Mom has been a good companion for Bela in the past. In the context of the film, Other Mommy starts out scary and only gets more so. In this way, the film lacks a sense of terrible buildup that might help its scares sink in deeper. As it stands, Savage’s film is an engaging but mostly hollow collection of edgy bits and half-baked mythology.

Other Mommy is capable of transporting people and objects to different locations – across rooms and even further – but the entity only does so selectively, when it is narratively convenient. It’s never explained why Other Mom has a sudden sense of urgency to convince Bela to agree to her request: that she let the monster (or whatever) into her heart. Presumably Other Mommy and Bela have been hanging out for a while, but I imagine OM was waiting for the cameras to start rolling to step up their campaign. Perhaps it feels like Ursula and Russell are at a breaking point, and soon Bela will have lost some of her innocence about family life and thus become a less attractive guest.

But that’s my generosity to the script, which hastily throws in some explanations and then continues its strange project of switching between serious subjects and arch-comic comedy. The story ends up getting to an interesting place – an acknowledgment that parenthood can be a taxing burden and hasn’t always been every parent’s dream in their lives – but it’s a rocky and silly road to get there. Perhaps if the film had stayed closer to Bela’s point of view, doing something stylistically daring, like David Mamet’s seductive piece The cryptogram – which is told entirely in the stilted, half-captured language of what a child overhears from a hidden distance – all of which would have more resonance. But Other mom keeps things simpler than that, despite all the supernatural things swirling around this hapless clan.

At least Chastain seems to be having fun in her role as the nefarious entity, flashing plenty of menacing smiles and scratching and shaking like she just stepped out of Naomi Watts’ TV set. She also cleverly adds the necessary notes of flint and distance to Ursula’s attitude; it’s a neat approximation of a parent who can be distant and restrained, and somewhat frightening for that. Or, if not frightening, at least unpredictable, a quietly unreliable and unrecognizable presence in the life of a child in need.

Also worth acknowledging are some of Savage’s clever aesthetic flourishes. Sometimes he sends out inconsistent images, but just as often he blocks out a scene and films it from a precise angle so as to tell a crisp, concise visual story. Particularly striking is a reverse shot showing father and daughter conversing as they look at each other through a gap between large building blocks, separated by a literal wall and a more metaphorical one, with looks of sad resignation on their faces. This cute moment is soon interrupted by some nonsense involving a Chuck E. Cheese style ball pit, but for a second, Other mom takes on the touching timbre of a grounded and thoughtful drama where the fantasy of childhood meets a difficult reality.

Other mom is somehow less engaging than the film’s really well-cut trailer, a problem shared by a handful of films over the years. The disturbing and impressive atmosphere (in the old sense of the term) of the first Battle: Los Angeles the trailer unfortunately gave way to a stupid, boring action movie. The suggested breadth and depth of the magnificent teaser of BILly Lynn’s long walk at halftime remained unfortunately unsatisfied in the real picture. And now Other momThe first glimpse of this film only leads to disappointment in the film itself, an often catchy and well-acted whiff that is neither poignant nor frightening enough. Maybe there’s another movie, Another Other momit might do the job better. Tonight I’m going to look under my bed to try to find it, probably in vain.