Mama is a 2013 Spanish-Canadian supernatural horror-fantasy film co-written and directed by Andrés Muschietti and based on his 2008 Argentine short film Mamá. The film stars Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and is produced by Zandy Federico and co-writer Bárbara Muschietti, with Guillermo del Toro serving as executive producer. The film deals with the story of two young girls abandoned in a forest cabin, fostered by an unknown entity that they fondly call "Mama", which eventually follows them to their new suburban home after their uncle retrieves them. Originally set for an October 2012 release, it was released in theaters on 18 January 2013.
Movie Details:
Directed by: Andrés Muschietti
Produced by: J. Miles Dale, Bárbara Muschietti
Screenplay by: Neil Cross, Andrés Muschietti, Bárbara Muschiett
Story by: Andrés Muschietti, Bárbara Muschietti
Based on: Mamá by Andrés Muschietti
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse, Daniel Kash, Javier Botet, Jane Moffat
Music by: Fernando Velázquez
Cinematography: Antonio Riestra
Edited by: Michelle Conroi
Production company: Toma 78, De Milo Productions
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release dates: 18 January 2013
Running time: 100 minutes
Country: Spain, Canada
Language: English
Budget: $15 million
Box office: $146,428,180, $10,784,216 (DVD and Blu-ray Sales)
Plot:
On the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, a distraught man, Jeffrey D'Asange, kills his business partners and estranged wife before taking his children, five-year-old Victoria and three-year-old Lilly (mistaken to be three and one), away from home. Driving dangerously fast on a snowy road, Jeffrey loses control and the car slides off and down the mountain, crashing into the woods. Surviving, he takes the children into an abandoned cabin and builds a fire, even though Victoria is resistant, thinking she saw someone inside. Planning to kill his daughters and commit suicide, he holds a gun to Victoria's head, but a shadowy figure drags him away and snaps his neck. Victoria turns around, but because her father had taken her glasses away, she did not see the gun and could not see what was happening. The girls, huddled by the fireside, are tossed a cherry by the mysterious figure. Five years later a rescue party, sponsored by Jeffrey's identical twin brother Lucas, finds Victoria and Lilly alive, but in a feral state after years of isolation. The girls are put in a welfare clinic under the psychiatric care of Dr. Gerald Dreyfuss. They make reference to "Mama", a maternal protector figure. When Lucas tries to communicate with the girls, they are initially hostile, but Victoria recognizes him after he gives her a pair of glasses and she can see him properly. Dreyfuss agrees to support Lucas and his girlfriend Annabel's custody claim against the girls' conniving maternal great-aunt Jean Podolski, their mother's illegally adoptive aunt. In exchange, they must move into a clinic-owned house and grant Dreyfuss continued contact with Victoria and Lilly for research purposes. When Victoria and Lilly arrive at the house, Victoria is immediately taken in by the life at the house while Lilly is still going through how she lived in the cabin and is not used to being around Lucas or Annabel. While in bed with Lucas, Annabel is startled by the appearance of a shadowy, monstrous figure in their doorway. While investigating, Lucas is attacked by "Mama" and is put into a coma after falling down the stairs. Annabel, who has no relation to the girls and is uncomfortable being around them, finds herself left alone to care for them. Although Annabel makes progress with Victoria, she finds Lilly hostile. Alarmed by nightmares of a woman and Victoria's warning about Mama's jealousy, Annabel asks Dreyfuss to investigate. He initially thought "Mama" to be an imaginary alter-ego of Victoria, believing she had to take on a parental role to take care of Lily for five years; however, his research corroborates Victoria's story that Mama is an aggrieved mother and brings to light the story of Edith Brennan, a mental asylum patient in the 1800s. Dreyfuss recovers a box containing a baby's remains, and first encounters Mama when interviewing Victoria again. Annabel has a nightmare revealing Mama's past: when Edith Brennan/Mama was sent to St. Gertrude's Asylum, her child was taken from her and given to nuns. She escaped the asylum, stabbed a nun, and took her baby back. Fleeing her pursuers, Edith jumped off a cliff, but before hitting the water below, Edith and the child made impact with a large branch (accounting for her misshapen head) and her unconscious body fell into the water and she drowned; Edith's child died on impact with the branch, but the baby's blanket wrapped corpse snagged on the branch and did not fall into the water below. Annabel realizes that Mama still doesn't realize her child died from hitting the tree; she searched the woods for more than a century and has taken on Victoria and Lilly as substitutes. Lucas regains consciousness after a disturbing vision of his dead brother, Jeffrey, tells him to go to the cabin in the woods and save his daughters. Annabel and the girls are visited by Jean, who is alarmed by the girls' bruises from their still animalistic behavior, and tries to get Annabel investigated for abusing them (likely an excuse to take Victoria and Lilly as part of her scheme). Victoria's growing closeness to Annabel makes her less willing to play with Mama, unlike Lilly. Dreyfuss visits the cabin at night to investigate and attempts to communicate with Mama. After his flashlight stops working, he uses the flash of his camera as a light to photograph Mama but is suddenly attacked and killed. Finding Dreyfuss missing, Annabel steals the girls' case files from his office. She learns that Edith and Mama are the same person, while Lucas leaves the hospital to search for the cabin. Shortly after making a breakthrough with Lilly after finding her outside in the cold, Annabel and the girls are attacked by a jealous Mama, who kills Jean and uses her body to spirit the children away in Jean's automobile. Annabel regains consciousness and hurries off to save the children. She meets Lucas along the way, and he joins her to find the children. The couple spot the children on the same cliff where Edith/Mama and her child leaped to their deaths over a century earlier. Mama is preparing to re-enact her fall, taking Victoria and Lilly with her. When Annabel offers Mama the remains of her child, Mama takes the skeleton, and transforms into her human form, sobbing at the baby's death. However, when Lilly (who, being younger than her sister, remembers only Mama as her original parent) calls out for her, Mama reverts to her more monstrous form, throws the baby's remains off the cliff, and takes the girls again, nearly killing Annabel and Lucas (but refraining from doing so mainly because Victoria clearly shows she cares about them). Lucas is knocked unconscious, but Annabel clings to Victoria, who asks to stay with her instead of leaving with Mama after Annabel's struggle for Victoria to stay, despite Lilly's pleas to come with her. After a tearful farewell, Mama and Lilly leap off the cliff, turning into a shower of moths when they hit the branch that originally killed Mama and her baby. The film ends with Annabel and Lucas embracing Victoria, and Victoria noticing a moth with bright blue wings (as opposed to Mama's moths, which were all dark) landing on her hand, indicating that is Lilly incarnated and is still with her in some form.