Goodnight Mommy—Movie review

by Peter J. O'Connell

Goodnight Mommy. Released (USA): Sept. 2015. Runtime: 99 mins. Rated: R for disturbing violent content and some nudity. In German with English subtitles.

Recent weeks have seen a German film—Phoenix--featuring plastic surgery as a key plot component. Now there's another German-language film (from Austria) doing the same thing, Goodnight Mommy. Recent weeks have also seen the American film The Visit, dealing with siblings having difficult relations with their elders in a rural setting. And Goodnight Mommy also has siblings with such difficulties.

Goodnight Mommy, written and directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, begins with twin boys, Elias and Lukas (Elias and Lukas Schwarz) playing in the fields and forests that surround an isolated, modernistic house. The boys are angelic in appearance and somewhat somber in manner, but their playing is typical “boy stuff”--hide and seek in a cornfield, wandering in marshes, exploring a cave, jumping up and down on a trampoline, roughhousing, collecting bugs, wearing masks.

Then Mommy (Susanne Wuest)--the boys' father is out of the picture—returns from plastic surgery with her face bandaged. It is not clear whether her surgery was because of an accident or for job reasons—she appears to work in media. Mommy is crabby and restricts the twins' activities. The boys begin to doubt whether she is actually their real mother. After all, in Mommy's room there is a photo of Mommy and a woman who looks very much like her.

Up to this point we may feel that Goodnight Mommy is the kind of European film sometimes characterized as “navel gazing”: philosophical issues such as the nature of identity raised—but not resolved—in murky metaphors. However, when Mommy's activities are “restricted” by her offspring, we realize that all along the pair of filmmakers have cleverly caught us up in a gradually unfolding, but relentlessly proceeding, process that is as stark as the design of the house and as dark as the cave that the twins explore. In fact, some of the film's later scenes are as shudder-inducing as the bugs that the boys collect.

Everything about Goodnight Mommy works together to create the memorable combination of both chilling and searing impact that the movie provides. Everything: the intriguing setting, the striking performances, the absence of score (except for some creepy lullabies). It's a “small picture” that should have a big effect on its audiences and lead to some spirited discussions.

“Footnote” to the film: Goodnight Mommy may be the first film to give a credit to “Stunt Roaches”!