Excerpted from the review on AWFJ’s Movie of the Week
Assassin movies are my vice. If the assassin is a woman, you’ve got me. If she’s a woman of color, I want to befriend the filmmakers. After a teaser that promised a deadly hit woman, who comes out of hiding to protect her daughter, I leaped to watch The Mother. Jennifer Lopez plays the unnamed lead with an emotional numbness that could only come from trauma. The horrors of her past are so evident in her expressions and body language, that we lean in, wanting to know more. As her counterpart, Omari Hardwick is a tough but tender FBI agent who we suspect might turn romantic. While her baby girl, Zoe (Lucy Paez), is a bright tween living an average life with her adoptive parents—just like her mother bargained for. The Mother is a terse and pointedly violent thriller that seeks to combine a remorseless crime drama with a mother-daughter saga. It nearly works but there are gaps in the story, as though long sequences are missing, making for a movie that is as emotionally distant as its lead.
