Ever since seeing the trailer I was very interested in seeing Goodnight Mommy the new German horror movie that was recently in very limited release in the US.
A spoiler free synopsis:
Two young boys are living at a remote lake home waiting for their mother to return from having plastic surgery. After her return she isn’t acting normally towards her sons. They start to wonder if this is an imposter and take any action necessary to find out if she really is their mother.
That said, I saw it this weekend. I enjoyed it. It is VERY slow in the beginning but picks up to a very disturbing crescendo. It’s hard to talk about much of it without using spoilers so I will now spoilerbox some of my thoughts/questions.
[spoiler]
I don’t think the reveal that Lukas is dead is much of a twist I mean the telegraph that super early in the movie and it’s a common enough trope that I can’t believe anyone was surprised by it. A lot of reviewers bash it for that being the twist. I personally think they filmmakers made is sort of a non-spoiler twist and the movie is more about the lengths the remaining child will go to to retain his illusion of his life.
His twin and best friend died. He cannot cope with the death and thinks he caused it. So the separation of his parents and his mother getting plastic surgery pushes him over the edge. He doesn’t want to forget his brother but people want him to move on. So it’s about his journey to make his mother bend to his reality.
Aside from that… i don’t know if the super glue or the dental flossing was worse. [/spoiler]
I think it is worth seeing but just be prepared it may not be exactly what you think it is and some people feel a little cheated because they are going in with expectations about one thing and don’t consider an alternate way to view the events.