{"id":2605,"date":"2013-02-22T15:26:19","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T14:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=2605"},"modified":"2013-02-22T19:59:06","modified_gmt":"2013-02-22T18:59:06","slug":"mama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2013\/02\/22\/mama\/","title":{"rendered":"Mama"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Mama<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nRelease date:<\/B> 22 February 2013

\nVenues:<\/B> UK wide

\nDistributor:<\/B> Universal

\nDirector:<\/B> Andr\u00e9s Muschietti

\nWriters:<\/B> Neil Cross, Andr\u00e9s Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti

\nCast:<\/B> Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle N\u00e9lisse

\nSpain\/Canada 2013

\n100 mins
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Guillermo del Toro is fast becoming the Steven Spielberg of horror. The emphasis, at the end of a number of the films he has directed or produced, on the rescuing of some sort of family unit, whatever the cost, is more worrying than any of the terrors unleashed on the audience. Mama<\/I>, directed by Andr\u00e9s Muschietti and produced by del Toro, is a case in point: its conclusion conveniently gets rid of the member of the family who can\u2019t be made to fit in \u2013 just like the del Toro-produced Don\u2019t Be Afraid of the Dark<\/I><\/A> effected some sort of reconciliation between two relatives by sacrificing the extra person in the family. <\/p>\n

Like many of del Toro\u2019s films, Mama<\/I> is a dark fairy tale \u2013 maybe even more explicitly so than his previous offerings, opening as it does with \u2018Once upon a Time\u2019. When his two missing nieces are found in the forest after five years, Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his rock-chick girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) take them in, under the supervision of their psychologist, Dr Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash). But the adults gradually begin to realise that Mama, the imaginary carer the girls had invented to survive in the forest, may not be so imaginary after all. <\/p>\n

Although the film has its moments (the discovery of the feral children in the cabin; the dream sequence that reveals the tragic events of the past; the scene, both sinister and humorous, in which Lilly, the younger girl, plays with an off-screen Mama), it is marred by implausible plot developments and, most importantly for a horror film, fails to deliver any scares. Despite telling a story that should pull on the audience\u2019s heartstrings, the film is unable to generate any strong emotional attachment to the characters. This may be partly due to the misjudged casting: Chastain is not credible as a rock chick, her character is embarrassingly clich\u00e9d and contrived, and there is a total lack of chemistry between her and Coster-Waldau. The best actor in the film is the youngest: Isabelle N\u00e9lisse is ambiguous and troubling as the six-year-old Lilly, disturbingly animal-like as she scuttles on all fours, and both creepy and sweet in her attachment to Mama.<\/p>\n

It does not help that the film echoes other motifs and character types already seen in films bearing del Toro\u2019s name. As in Don\u2019t Be Afraid of the Dark<\/I>, Mama<\/I> features a woman forced to take on a maternal role to children who are her boyfriend\u2019s responsibility. Like Julia\u2019s Eyes<\/I><\/A>, it has a scene in which a character uses the flash on a camera to see their attacker \u2013 in Don\u2019t Be Afraid of the Dark<\/I>, the same device is used to keep the monsters away. The recurrence of motifs in a creator\u2019s work is natural, but here the effect is less of stylistic and thematic coherence than of unimaginative repetition. <\/p>\n

Virginie S\u00e9lavy<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guillermo del Toro is fast becoming the Steven Spielberg of horror.
\nReview by Virginie S&#233lavy<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/surUP-mama","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5109,"url":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2014\/10\/12\/shrews-nest\/","url_meta":{"origin":2605,"position":0},"title":"Shrew\u2019s Nest","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"October 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This horrific sisterly drama is a hysterical film, saturated with repression, progressively descending into grotesque insanity. 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