Goodnight Mommy is 99 minutes long. Goodnight Mommy is about twin boys cavorting in their country home with their mom who is recovering from facial surgery. The first two thirds of Goodnight Mommy are perfection. The directors create a lush world emotionally reminiscent of Guillermo del Toro’s films, but with an interior set design that evokes a stark terror like It Follows or Pedro Almodovar. Goodnight Mommy is impressive for its lack of a soundtrack and perfect pacing, which unfortunately drags in the final act.
While the final third may have left other viewers rocking in the fetal position, I’ve seen too many movies, including Audition and Funny Games, so I not only saw the twist coming within the first ten minutes of Goodnight Mommy, I was impatient for the inevitable reveal. I’m not sure how the directors could have sustained the tone of the first two acts. Perhaps the directors should have kept Goodnight Mommy from the boys’ perspective instead of shifting to the mother’s. I did not need the shift to the mother to figure out what was going on.
SPOILERS
If any viewers have experience dealing with people who suffer from mental disabilities, the minute that the mother refused to talk to, make food for or physically interact with one of the boys made it obvious that only one was real. Also after watching The Sixth Sense and Fight Club, American audiences are pretty sensitive to unreliable characters.
When the mother was alarmed that the child locked his door and had a lighter, I concluded that the boy did something to kill his brother unintentionally-probably with fire. The mother was in denial that something was wrong and thought that sternness would help. The father either wasn’t in denial and the parents disagreed about how the boy should be treated so he left or just the strain of losing a child was enough for the father to bounce. At any rate, the mom voice did not work, and her son went off the rails again.
I thought that the set design was perfect. There were multiple paintings/enlarged photographs of women backing the viewer so the viewer could not see the subject’s face. Also there were faceless dolls on a shelf. I liked how both the boy and his mom played with the blinds the same way, and he cavorted with a green mask. The boy was projecting his split personality/sinister side on his temporarily faceless mother instead of confronting his destructive desires and real consequences of those desires by confronting his imagined twin brother, i.e. his destructive side.
Goodnight Mommy is a beautiful cinematic debut for Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, but if you are a frequent moviegoer, you may not be as impressed as less experienced viewers by the end. Don’t let the subtitles dissuade you. Give Goodnight Mommy a chance with measured expectations.
