Audience Member
The ending was not given any justice. It's a complete chaos. The entire movie was absolutely preposterous.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/17/23
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Audience Member
Really unsatisfying ending makes passing the time with this movie and the interesting characters not worth it. Next time, give us a good ending and the movie to make the movie a 4 or 5.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/14/23
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Audience Member
This is a review of the movie. The lead actress is a fine actress. But the story is propagating absurd racial stereotypes. It's a modern-day mockery of Filipino natives by none other than the race that colonized it all those years ago and destroyed it.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
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Audience Member
Great psychological thriller!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
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Audience Member
Really??? Filipinos doesnt deserved this kind of
Insult!
Next time do it better!
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Note: I originally planned to post this review on the 18th of September, but I had no WiFi the day after I watched this. Puerto Rico, where I live, suffered its worst hurricane in modern history on the 19th of September that left most of the island without electricity for months. And this is after another category 5 hurricane that left me without electricity for 11 days. I was without electricity for FIVE months, until yesterday that is, when the power was finally restored. So here is the review for this movie, it's unchanged and unedited, as if that's somehow important. Autism is an interesting disorder, even though there are people out there who believe it should accepted as a difference and not treated as a disorder. And when I say autism is an interesting disorder, I don't mean as a freak show type thing, I would never be so insensitive. It's just that it's a subject that you very rarely see touched in a genre such as horror, for obvious reasons. Horror, particularly some of the smaller, more outlaw-ish filmmakers, haven't always been known for their tact. And it's not even just horror, this can be said for every genre of film out there. It's just a touchy subject to explore, particularly if you don't do your research and don't portray the disorder accurately. There's been some criticism of Netflix's recent original series, Atypical, over the fact that the portrayal of the autism is stereotypical and inaccurate. I'll be honest, I don't get into any of those deals, simply because of the fact that, as far as I can tell, I do not know any autistic people and I do not know how they behave. I leave that to those who kno and who have studied this disorder. Anyway, the point is that you've got to handle this adeptly or else face a major backlash. Which is why this movie, from Chile, might not really be on anyone's radar in terms of analyzing its portrayal of autism. Where can I begin with this movie? First things first, and this should be the most obvious, is that I thought this was quite a good movie. The thing that jumps out most at you is, obviously, Daniela Ramirez's incredible performance as the eponymous mother (or is she???). The movie, admittedly speaking, is cut from the same mold of the 'evil nanny' genre and Rosemary's Baby-type films, but Daniela Ramirez makes this well-worth the watch. I wouldn't say that it's very good, I don't really know why, but, even if you hate the movie, you can't hate on its lead actress. It's almost impossible to honestly. The film tells the story of Diana, a pregnant woman, who struggles to take care of her son, Martin, who suffers from severe autism. He slams his head against the wall, or shelves at the supermarket, hits Diana, spits food back at her, soils himself, etc, etc. Quite frankly, Diana is stressed out, as most people would be, particularly since her husband off at work and, barely, spending any time at home taking care of his son. During a trip to a supermarket and a particularly violent tantrum thrown by Martin, he is calmed down by this woman of Filipino descent. Diana's husband convinces her to hire this woman, named Luz, to take care of Martin full-time. Diana agrees and they're able to hire Luz. Luz makes incredible progress with Martin. He is communicating for the first time (and only in Tagalog) and is well-behaved. Martin's behavior changes almost immediately after Luz moves into the house. Everything is great at first, Diana and Tomas (her husband) are grateful towards Luz for the work she's done with Martin. Moving farther into the movie, Diana starts to gets some strange vibes from Luz. She downloads this app that translates foreign languages to Spanish. She uses this app when Luz and Martin are having a conversation and she finds out, or the app tells her at least, that Luz is indoctrinating Martin against his parents, telling him that they don't love him and only she does. Tomas shrugs it off and tells Diana that she's paranoid and she lets it go. As the pregnancy progresses, however, things start getting stranger. Luz's son, whom was cured of autism, is brought into the equation. Naturally speaking, you don't know if the strange things that Diana is witnessing is the product of her own fractured mind or if they're actually happening and if Luz is into some strange shit and is trying to take Diana's son away. I think these are the best parts of the movie because, as mentioned, they give Daniela Ramirez, a lot of material to sink her teeth into. She does about as good a job as anyone could of making it seem equal parts paranoia and legitimate. Part of me thinks that the movie was just gonna be one whole big red herring and everything that Diana went through was someone else other than Luz and her son plotting against them. Where I do think the film loses some steam is in its third act. And, honestly, I think that, taken out of context, the third act is actually really good and the ending is pretty damn effective. The problem I have is that they never once, for any reason AND THIS WILL HAVE SPOILERS SO SKIP AHEAD, explore Luz's motivations for performing this satanic ritual and ripping Diana's baby from her stomach in the climax. And why does she need Martin to do it? I think exploring Luz's motivations would have given the film a little more strength and not come across as so, um, racially insensitive. It wouldn't have changed the fact that there's still some insenstivity there, but it would not have been as bad, because at least you get to see things from her perspective. And, really, she just did this just to do it. For no real reason whatsoever and, in this case at least, I just didn't find that to be strong storytelling. Sometimes people just kill others in real life just because, but films are not real life. Give me something more to sink my teeth into when it comes to Luz as a villain and why she did what she did. The film also brings up an interesting question, and this is something that is brought up by Luz's son, and that is the fact that Diana, partly, wants Martin's behavior to improve for her own sake and not becasue it might actually help Martin. Diana is never portrayed as an incompetent mother, but there are scenes, near the end, where she's simply acting out of spite and not really thinking about what is best for her son. That's an interesting subject to explore and it would have been more interesting to see a film where the twist isn't that Luz is turning Martin against her. It's one where the twist is the one where Diana is sabotaging her son's own progress because she, in some way, feels jealous that Luz was the one who was able to help Martin and not his own mother. It would also play into the themes of Diana not doing what is best for her own son, but rather what is best for herself. It is what it is and that's not the movie we got. The movie we DID get was still good, however, and while I had my issues with not exploring the character of Luz from anyone else's perspective but Diana's, this is still an enjoyable thriller/suspense/horror movie. I'd recommend it solely on Daniela Ramirez's performance, but the movie has some interesting ideas. It's just that they could have done much more with them.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/10/18
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