FEATURE:
Speaking Words of Wisdom…
Can Hollywood Ever Truly Evoke the Realities of Being a Major Artist?
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THERE have been a fair amount of…
IN THIS PHOTO: Michaela Coel and Anne Hathaway in Mother Mary/PHOTO CREDIT: Eric Zachanowich/A24
films from the past few years where music is at the centre. Whether biopics or films where actors are playing artists, I do wonder whether Hollywood can ever truly portray the star power, complexities and realities of what it is like to be a major artist. The highs, lows and nuances. I raise this, as there was a recent article from Adrian Horton in The Guardian, who said that Mother Mary is the latest film to fail to convey the life of an arena-touring artist into a compelling and authentic cinematic experience. The film stars Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel. It has won a lot of rave reviews. Many commending Anne Hathaway’s performance in the central role. This is what Empire said in their four-star review regarding the premise: “The set-up seems simple. On a Thursday, sad-girl pop star Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) shows up at the offices of her former designer, Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel), and requests a dress to be made for her headline show that Sunday. The pair, it’s immediately clear, have not spoken in years, and Sam is not thrilled to see her. But against her better judgement, she agrees. Sam asks the singer to describe her thoughts and feelings, which she will then translate into her fashion, calling it a “transubstantiation of feeling” — the kind of lapsed-Catholic line that might be dismissed as pretension. But it speaks to a profound truism: that the creative process is effectively a search for the divine, for the metaphysical, the world beyond the visible”. In terms of its angle and straying away from a basic or cliché story of a major artist and their life, this is a great psychological drama. This is what Rolling Stone wrote in the conclusion of their review: “Having shifted the register into both spooky action and good old-fashioned spookiness, Mother Mary rushes headfirst into Giallo-colored delirium — and it’s here that the film either abandons you or works its way into your own psyche like a malevolent specter. Lowery is grasping at something that lies beyond the confines of genre flicks, cracked-up character studies, and highfalutin fashion dramas, and when he and his cast do tune into that desired frequency, it’s thrilling and unsettling in a way that’s hard to nail down. A certain leap of faith is required. But for those who believe that movies can get into your head and under your skin in ways that sometimes defy description, and tap into the same transcendent state that great pop music does — that sensation of temporarily floating into some other dizzying realm — this is for you. It isn’t the movie you think you’re walking into. Amen for that”.
I will drop in parts of that feature from The Guardian. However, I wonder what critics and cinema-goers are looking for when it comes to films that revolve around artists. Do they want to see the realities of touring life and the incredible highs, but also those backstage moments and the real tough times Many biopics have struggled because they are either whitewashing and sanitising too much )in the case of the recent Michael Jackson biopic, Michael), or they are seen as getting the balance wrong. The actor playing an artist not convincing. The tone of the film being off-balance and jarring. It is very hard to get it right. With plans for a Julia Garner-starring Madonna biopic and a Joni Mitchell biopic slated, you do wonder if they will fail or manage to strike gold. When we think of fictional characters who are very similar to major Pop artists, perhaps Smile 2 and Skye Riley is one of the most gripping modern films. Released in 2024 and starring Naomi Scott, many compared Skye Riley to Lady Gaga. That is another psychological film. A Horror. There is the danger that, if a film around a massive artist is too straight and does not have edge or this original angle, then it might come off as too flat or boring. These are interesting takeaways from that article on The Guardian’s website:
“By all accounts, the pop elements of Mother Mary, meant to color a character whose relationship to fandom serves as an overarching metaphor, were made with great reverence for an artform often easily dismissed as, well, easy. On the Popcast, Hathaway waxes poetic about studying pop music like an academic, and Mother Mary certainly appears erudite – speaking nonsense, sure, but well-versed in the precise choreography, deific grace and outsized persona of an archetypical pop star. But the effect is not, as FKA twigs put it in the same interview, “total feeling” despite imperfect approximation. It is the opposite, and the latest disappointing example of a nagging paradox: pop’s power is everywhere – commanding evermore feelings, attention and fan investment – yet almost nowhere, at least convincingly, in film and TV
Mother Mary, to be fair, sets itself the very difficult task of not only convincing us of the music’s reality but also its fictional popularity, a thing which requires ineffable star quality – that quicksilver thing that makes a certain performer pop on camera, or why, say, Harry Styles stood out in One Direction – that definitionally cannot be created, only trained. The impossibility of reverse alchemy, of creating the matter of cultural legend, is the same reason why Amazon’s splashy Daisy Jones & The Six, which employed almost as much star wattage to create an alternative Fleetwood Mac, fizzled on impact.
But it’s Vox Lux, Brady Corbet’s 2018 precursor to The Brutalist, that remains the most divisive and compelling pop star movie in recent memory for its pitch-black view of pop music as fundamentally empty, stardom a Faustian bargain; in it, a school shooting survivor becomes a star played by a sneering Natalie Portman, but her music contains no depth, nor comfort, just violence metabolized into earworms that slowly poison her. It’s an incredibly dim view – the movie, unsurprisingly, made little money – but so wildly ambitious and unnerving as to be unforgettable. (I can’t say the same for the music, which is both too low-budget, and too disdaining of actual pop, to take seriously.)”.
Even if many music biopics have been commercially successfully, they have fared less well with critics. The recent mockumentary, The Moment, starring Charli xcx was not reived well by all. If Mother Mary combines elements of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift, does the balance and blend work into something convincing and memorable. Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel are terrific, and Mother Mary is rightly being hailed by many as a fascinating and bold film that takes risks and does something different. It is hard to pull off that feat. Perhaps no single film can do everything, in terms of getting that star power and appeal radiating from the screen. Someone playing an artist and making sure that they convince. Is it hard to fictionalise Pop music and artists? There is an argument for that. Even if incredible films like Smile 2 succeed in some ways, there are those that say the film struggled to carve out its identity and stand out. It may well be the case that it is impossible to create a fictional artist and story that also is relatable to modern Pop. The machination’s and machinery. Whilst Mother Mary is a brilliant physiological drama with some incredible surreal moments and some committed performances, did it address the gristle of Pop stardom? That is what Adrian Horton asks in her review. It is an interesting discussion. If people have examples of music biopics or films where they wholeheartedly succeed. It has been many years since a music biopic has received praise across the board and has ticked all of the boxes. In terms of films that have actors portraying fictional artists, and trying to articulate the realities of the Pop world and also have that sheen and shine. The earworms and easy charm but also something that digs deep and explores the depths and darkness of Pop. The real struggles arena-touring artists face. Would that be a tonal mess? I am a huge fan of Anne Hathaway, and she is brilliant in Mother Mary. Even so, will Hollywood and the film industry ever create that alchemy and be able to produce a film that takes the best elements of Smile 2, Mother Mary, great music biopics and the 2024 rom-com, The Idea of You, and transcend beyond parody? It may take the right script and concept. However, it may be the fact that the reality of touring the world and being at the mercy of fans and the media is only best described and portrayed by real artists living through that. Trying to fictionalise and asking an actor to truly convince as a modern mainstream artist and have that star power might be…
AN impossible undertaking.