Goodnight MommyDangerous things happen when the imaginations of young boys are stirred. For the twin boys, Elias and Lukas (Elias and Lukas Schwarz), their simple days of play in their affluent home in the countryside changes when their mother (Susanne Wuest) returns from the hospital, following facial reconstructive surgery. Presumably still healing, she wears a mask of gauze, and the boys observe subtle differences in her manner, which puts the thought in their mind that this woman is not, in fact, their mother, but an impostor. What follows is a harrowing escalation of tortuous acts as they attempt to glean the answers they seek.
|
|
Goodnight Mommy is a psychological horror film, and both descriptors are key. The film insinuates key elements from the start which suggest that there is something amiss in this otherwise halcyon homestead removed from civilization. It is evident from the start that although Elias is close with Lukas, and the two boys play heartily all day, there is also the pervading sense that Lukas is a figment of Elias' imagination. But rather than simply exist as an invisible friend, there is evidence that there is (or was) a Lukas at some point, through a picture of the twin boys and their mother at the beach. When Elias acts, it is often at the suggestion or direction of Lukas, like a conscience...or worse, a devil on his shoulder. In and of itself, this would not be that much of a basis for the plot; but Lukas speaks for Elias in his doubts about the authenticity of the woman in the bandages. Virtually all of Goodnight Mommy is contingent on Elias' point of view. In his eyes, this woman acts strange, speaks curtly to him--and completely ignores Lukas--and has done something with his mother. The reason by which the facial surgery was needed is never spelled out, but by the conclusion of the film, it is heavily suggested. Really, everything about Goodnight Mommy is "heavily suggested"; it's possible the woman is an impostor...it's possible Lukas is simply being ignored by the mother (and everyone else), because that is how Elias sees the world. And it is widely accepted that young boys do not have a fully formed view of the world, and this is no less true for a boy like Elias. He latches onto trivial clues to reinforce his suspicions, such as how the mother fails to guess herself in a game they play, even when presented with clues as to her identity, implied to be an Austrian actress. The boys discover in an old photo album another woman in a picture with the mother, who is dressed identically to her, and looks a bit like her, someone the mother identifies when confronted as "a friend". They discover their house is for sale online, while researching their own mother, and that her eye color appears different in person than in a low-resolution internet dating video they find for her on her laptop. All of these and more are apparently enough for the boys to eventually bind and torture the mother into confessing what happened to their "real" mother, turning an already horrible situation into something exponentially more terrible.
Were Goodnight Mommy strictly concerned with plot, it would be a chilling, if simple, horror tale. But the film explores what it means to be a young boy, and is excellent at capturing the kind of paranoid fear which can circulate through the mind of even a normal young child when faced with something he doesn't understand, or cannot face. Identity and duplicity is at the core of Goodnight Mommy. The open and bright country home is furnished with artwork, including a few intentionally blurry photographs of a woman who looks a bit like the mother--that is, if you imagine it to be. That Elias and Lukas are twins is no coincidence, as they act as agents for one another, with Lukas periodically reinforcing their plan of attack on the mother when Elias gets cold feet. The boys spend their days like most other boys, exploring the woods surrounding their house, engaging in burping contests, playing in the tub, and swimming in the lake. The boys keep a collection of roaches in a large aquarium, which strikes me as an unusual indulgence for the mother, who is not surprised at its existence. I believe that this is because the mother has spoiled the boys, and has largely let them get away with a lot. When she finally reveals her face in an effort to make up with them following an earlier chastisement, she bribes them with a boomerang--a weapon, no less. The mother indicates that she needs rest to heal from the operation, suggesting her patience with Elias is already strained from the pain which has her taking medication. Her stress causes her to punish Elias, slapping him during their argument. After this incident, Elias and Lukas play at slapping one another, to see how much they can take, their own playful efforts turning more violent following the incident. As it is with children, they absorb and emulate stress.
Just as the mother wore a "mask" upon her return, so to do the boys wear masks as they proceed with their interrogation of the mother. The masks that they wear are a kind of psychological insulation--a protective barrier--from the guilt of their actions, like how torturers and other administers of violent retribution don a guise or hood, like executioners. The stress causes the boys to gird themselves for confrontation, even fashioning crossbow bolts from toy suction cups. What makes Goodnight Mommy so utterly unsettling is that the captors of the mother are none other than her flesh and blood. And while they commit to their cruel acts on the pretense that it is not their actual mother they are torturing, one suspects that on some deeper level--even if it is just her visage--they know they are taking out their aggression on her, blaming her for any number of presumed transgressions, and desire to hurt her out of some childish form of revenge. Goodnight Mommy is a terrifying trek into a scenario where the bonds of family and the implication of security and trust are only skin deep.
Recommended for: Fans of a deeply disturbing horror film which evokes any variety of psychological fixations, Freudian and otherwise, and will no doubt cause audiences to wince at the execution of the boys' efforts to unmask their mother's presumed impostor.
Were Goodnight Mommy strictly concerned with plot, it would be a chilling, if simple, horror tale. But the film explores what it means to be a young boy, and is excellent at capturing the kind of paranoid fear which can circulate through the mind of even a normal young child when faced with something he doesn't understand, or cannot face. Identity and duplicity is at the core of Goodnight Mommy. The open and bright country home is furnished with artwork, including a few intentionally blurry photographs of a woman who looks a bit like the mother--that is, if you imagine it to be. That Elias and Lukas are twins is no coincidence, as they act as agents for one another, with Lukas periodically reinforcing their plan of attack on the mother when Elias gets cold feet. The boys spend their days like most other boys, exploring the woods surrounding their house, engaging in burping contests, playing in the tub, and swimming in the lake. The boys keep a collection of roaches in a large aquarium, which strikes me as an unusual indulgence for the mother, who is not surprised at its existence. I believe that this is because the mother has spoiled the boys, and has largely let them get away with a lot. When she finally reveals her face in an effort to make up with them following an earlier chastisement, she bribes them with a boomerang--a weapon, no less. The mother indicates that she needs rest to heal from the operation, suggesting her patience with Elias is already strained from the pain which has her taking medication. Her stress causes her to punish Elias, slapping him during their argument. After this incident, Elias and Lukas play at slapping one another, to see how much they can take, their own playful efforts turning more violent following the incident. As it is with children, they absorb and emulate stress.
Just as the mother wore a "mask" upon her return, so to do the boys wear masks as they proceed with their interrogation of the mother. The masks that they wear are a kind of psychological insulation--a protective barrier--from the guilt of their actions, like how torturers and other administers of violent retribution don a guise or hood, like executioners. The stress causes the boys to gird themselves for confrontation, even fashioning crossbow bolts from toy suction cups. What makes Goodnight Mommy so utterly unsettling is that the captors of the mother are none other than her flesh and blood. And while they commit to their cruel acts on the pretense that it is not their actual mother they are torturing, one suspects that on some deeper level--even if it is just her visage--they know they are taking out their aggression on her, blaming her for any number of presumed transgressions, and desire to hurt her out of some childish form of revenge. Goodnight Mommy is a terrifying trek into a scenario where the bonds of family and the implication of security and trust are only skin deep.
Recommended for: Fans of a deeply disturbing horror film which evokes any variety of psychological fixations, Freudian and otherwise, and will no doubt cause audiences to wince at the execution of the boys' efforts to unmask their mother's presumed impostor.