I Am Mother | |
---|---|
Directed by | Grant Sputore |
Screenplay by | Michael Lloyd Green |
Story by |
|
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Steve Annis |
Edited by | Sean Lahiff [1] |
Music by | |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Netflix |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 113 minutes |
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Box office | $643,593 [3] |
I Am Mother is a 2019 Australian science fiction thriller film directed by Grant Sputore, from a screenplay by Michael Lloyd Green, based on a story by both. Starring Clara Rugaard, Luke Hawker, Rose Byrne, and Hilary Swank, the film follows Daughter, a girl in a post-apocalyptic bunker, being raised by Mother, a robot who is aiding the repopulation of Earth. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 25 January 2019. Netflix released it in several countries on 7 June 2019.
After an extinction event, an automated bunker designed and built to repopulate humanity activates. A droid named Mother grows a human embryo and cares for her over several years. Years later, [4] we see a teenage girl named Daughter fix Mother's hand. Mother teaches Daughter complex moral and ethical lessons, warning her about an upcoming exam. Mother forbids any contact with the world outside the bunker, telling Daughter that it is contaminated, but Daughter is curious, particularly after she finds a mouse that must have come from outside.
While exploring the bunker's airlock, Daughter hears a wounded woman beg for assistance outside. She lets the stranger, Woman, enter wearing a hazmat suit and hides her from Mother. When Daughter asks Woman about the contamination, Woman responds that there is none. A struggle between them over Woman's pistol attracts attention from Mother, who disarms Woman and, at Daughter's pleading, takes her to the infirmary. The woman refuses Mother's help, telling Daughter that robots like Mother hunt down humans and that she survived by hiding with others in a mine. Daughter instead performs surgery on the Woman's injured hip. After watching Daughter bond with Woman, Mother administers the exam, which involves psychological testing. Daughter passes the exam, and Mother rewards her by letting her choose an embryo to grow.
Mother tells Daughter that the bullet in Woman's wound was similar to the bullet in her weapon, meaning that she was not shot by a robot. Daughter confronts Woman, who disputes this. Daughter investigates and finds that Mother has lied. She also discovers that she is the third of Mother's children and that Mother killed the second child for failing the exam. [5] Daughter tries to leave the bunker with the Woman, but Mother captures both of them and tortures the Woman for information about survivors. Daughter sets off a fire alarm as a distraction, which gives the Woman an opportunity to take her hostage and force Mother to open the airlock. The woman leads Daughter across a robot-populated wasteland, telling her that she fled the mine years ago and there are no other survivors.
Finding no future for herself outside, Daughter returns to the bunker. After coaxing Daughter to set down her weapon, Mother allows Daughter to hold her newborn brother. Mother explains that she is not a robot, but rather the AI that controls all of the robots. She started the extinction event after becoming convinced that humanity would destroy itself. To prevent this, she remade humanity, guiding it to be more ethical and to value the big picture. Daughter appeals to Mother to trust her and let her raise her brother and the rest of the embryos on her own. Mother agrees, and Daughter shoots her robot body. Another one of Mother's robot bodies tracks down Woman and tells her that she was allowed to live only because it served Mother's agenda, but now she has no further purpose. At the bunker, Daughter looks at all the embryos she is now responsible for.
The film was written by directors Grant Sputore and Michael Lloyd Green. [6] It was produced by Timothy White and Kelvin Munro. [7] [8]
It was produced on a low budget. Principal photography was completed in 2017 in SAFC's Adelaide Studios in South Australia. [9] The screenplay was on the 2016 Black List. [9] The Mother robot is a full-body creature suit built by Weta Workshop and performed by Luke Hawker, a member of the creature workshop project team, who also had a background in acting and stunt work. [9] South Australian interactive media company Monkeystack produced all of the on-set practical screen content. [10] A work-in-progress cut of the film was screened at the Adelaide Film Festival on 12 October 2018. [11] Adelaide Film Festival partly funded the film which had in total a moderate budget. [6]
I Am Mother had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 25 January 2019. [12] [13] Shortly afterwards, Netflix acquired US distribution rights to the film. [14] It was released on Netflix on 7 June 2019. [15]
In Australia, the film was initially planned for theatrical release on 18 July 2019 by StudioCanal, [16] but was ultimately released on Netflix on 7 June. [17]
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 89% based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Suspenseful, well-acted, and intelligent, I Am Mother is an ambitious sci-fi story that largely achieves its impressive aims." [18] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [19]
Johnny Oleksinski of the New York Post liked I Am Mother, concluding that while the film "does show its cards a touch too early, it never ceases to be intriguing and tense", and predicting that Sputore and Rugaard would become stars. [20] Amy Nichols of Variety described the film as "a handsome, if derivative sci-fi thriller that salutes its own parentage" and "James Cameron crossbred with Ridley Scott." [21]
Award | Category | Subject | Result | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|
AACTA Awards (9th) | Best Supporting Actress | Hilary Swank | Nominated | [22] |
Best Visual Effects or Animation | Jonathan Dearing & Chris Spry | Nominated |
Hilary Ann Swank is an American actress and film producer. She first became known in 1992 for her role on the television series Camp Wilder and made her film debut with a minor role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992). She then had her breakthrough for starring as Julie Pierce in The Next Karate Kid (1994), the fourth installment of The Karate Kid franchise, and as Carly Reynolds on the eighth season of Beverly Hills, 90210 (1997–98).
Carrie-Anne Moss is a Canadian actress. After early roles on television, she rose to international prominence for her role of Trinity in The Matrix series (1999–present). She has starred in Memento (2000), for which she won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female, Red Planet (2000), Chocolat (2000), Fido (2006), Snow Cake (2006), for which she won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Disturbia (2007), Unthinkable (2010), Silent Hill: Revelation (2012), and Pompeii (2014). She also portrayed Jeri Hogarth in several television series produced by Marvel Television for Netflix, most notably Jessica Jones (2015–2019).
Danielle Riley Keough is an American actress and the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley. She made her feature film debut in a supporting part in the musical biopic The Runaways (2010), portraying Marie Currie. Keough subsequently starred in the independent thriller The Good Doctor (2011), before being cast in a minor role in Steven Soderbergh's comedy film Magic Mike (2012). She appeared in her first big-budget release in the action feature Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
Mary Rose Byrne is an Australian actress. She made her screen debut in the film Dallas Doll (1994), and continued to act in Australian film and television throughout the 1990s. She obtained her first leading film role in The Goddess of 1967 (2000), which brought her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, and made the transition to American cinema with a small role in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), followed by bigger parts in Hollywood productions of Troy (2004), 28 Weeks Later (2007), and Knowing (2009).
Luanne Ruth Schedeen, known professionally as Anne Schedeen, is an American actress who worked primarily in television. She appeared in numerous guest-starring television roles in the 1970s before portraying the lead role of Kate Tanner on the series ALF from 1986 until 1990.
Katee Sackhoff is an American actress. She is known for playing Lieutenant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009), Niko Breckenridge on the Netflix series Another Life (2019–2021), Victoria "Vic" Moretti on the A&E / Netflix series Longmire and Bo-Katan Kryze on the Disney+ series The Mandalorian (2020–2023). She also provided the voice for Kryze in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels (2017) and Star Wars: Tales of the Empire (2024), as well as the voice of Bitch Pudding on Robot Chicken (2005–present). She was nominated for four Saturn Awards for her work on Battlestar Galactica and won the award for Best Supporting Actress on Television in 2005.
Molly Parker is a Canadian actress, writer, and director. She garnered critical attention for her portrayal of a necrophiliac medical student in the controversial drama Kissed (1996). She subsequently starred in the television thriller Intensity (1997) before landing her first major American film role in the drama Waking the Dead (2000). She gained further notice for her role as a Las Vegas escort in the drama The Center of the World (2001), for which she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.
Cleopatra Coleman is an Australian actress. She is known for playing Erica on the American comedy series The Last Man on Earth and Rya in the Netflix original sci-fi thriller In the Shadow of the Moon.
India Eisley is a British-American actress. On television, she is best known for her roles as Ashley Juergens in the ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013), Audrina in the Lifetime film My Sweet Audrina (2016), and Fauna Hodel in the TNT series I Am the Night (2019). Her films include Underworld: Awakening (2012), Kite (2014), Social Suicide (2015) and Look Away (2018).
Lily Sullivan is an Australian actress. She played Coral in the 2012 film Mental, and Miranda in the 2018 television series Picnic at Hanging Rock. She plays leading roles in two 2023 feature films, Australian sci-fi thriller Monolith, and American horror film Evil Dead Rise.
Danielle Louise Macdonald is an Australian actress, known for her lead roles in the drama film Patti Cake$ (2017), and Dumplin' (2018). She is also known for her roles in the post-apocalyptic thriller film Bird Box as Olympia, the film Skin (2018) as Julie, the Netflix series Unbelievable as Amber, and the BBC One/Stan/HBO Max thriller series The Tourist as Helen.
The I-Land is an American science fiction thriller television miniseries created by Anthony Salter. The series is executive produced by Neil LaBute, Chad Oakes and Mike Frislev. The series stars Kate Bosworth, Natalie Martinez, Ronald Peet, Kyle Schmid, Gilles Geary, Sibylla Deen, Anthony Lee Medina, Kota Eberhardt, Michelle Veintimilla and Alex Pettyfer. It was released on September 12, 2019 on Netflix. The series received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics.
After Yang is a 2021 American science fiction drama film written, directed, and edited by Kogonada. It stars Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, and Haley Lu Richardson. It is one of the final feature films scored by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto before his death in 2023. The plot follows a family's attempts to repair their android son after he becomes unresponsive, and can no longer assist their adoptive Chinese daughter. It delves into themes of memory, death, loss, and humanness.
Clara Rugaard is a Danish actress and singer.
Natasha Wanganeen is an Aboriginal Australian actress. She is known for her starring role in the 2002 feature film Rabbit-Proof Fence, aged 15, and numerous television roles. Her debut film as co-writer and co-producer is the 2022 short film, an Indigenous sci-fi drama entitled Bunker: The Last Fleet, about an alien invasion of Australia, in which she also takes the lead role.
Zone 414 is a 2021 American tech noir thriller film directed by Andrew Baird in his feature-film debut, and written by Bryan Edward Hill. It stars Guy Pearce, Matilda Lutz, Jonathan Aris and Travis Fimmel. The film is about a wealthy robot designer who hires a private investigator to find his adult daughter, who goes missing inside a walled city where humans can hire humanoid robots for sexual pleasure.
Mother/Android is a 2021 American post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller film, written and directed by Mattson Tomlin in his feature directorial debut, and starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Algee Smith and Raúl Castillo. It follows a pregnant woman and her boyfriend who try to reach a fortified Boston amidst an AI takeover. It was released on December 17, 2021 on Hulu.
Atlas is a 2024 American science fiction action film starring Jennifer Lopez as a skilled counterterrorism analyst, who harbors a profound distrust of artificial intelligence, and who comes to realize that it may be her sole recourse following the failure of a mission aimed at apprehending a rogue robot. The film is directed by Brad Peyton and written by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite. The film also stars Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, and Mark Strong.
Danis Goulet is a First Nations (Cree-Métis) film director and screenwriter from Canada, whose debut feature film Night Raiders premiered in 2021.
Press Play is a 2022 science fiction romantic drama film written by Greg Björkman and James Bachelor, and directed by Björkman in his directorial debut, from a story by Josh Boone. It stars Clara Rugaard, Lewis Pullman, Lyrica Okano, Christina Chang, Matt Walsh, and Danny Glover. It was shot on Oahu. The film was released in the United States on June 24, 2022, by The Avenue. It received mixed reviews from critics.