Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother provides an astounding look at the lines between faith, family, and self worth
Where does our faith come from?
The core question behind Bassam Tariq’s film Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother is posed in such a way that is meant to both challenge our belief and yet help us deal with the realization that comes from admission. I entered the press screening of the film with book knowledge and years of attending Orthodox Christian Church, but I left the film theater feeling a little like someone had just confronted, and reaffirmed, what my own belief system could be built on.
I had been devoting my time to my own Church for what seems like forever, heading to the building nearly every day for hours and hours, volunteering, giving, helping and in many ways leading. It had become a core part of my identity, maybe not so much in the full belief of its tenets but definitely as a place to feel like I’m a part of something. One Sunday afternoon, after a long evening the night before and long morning at both Service and afterwards, I received some news that broke me, that sent me into a tailspin, punching at the sky, cursing, wondering why God himself would hurt me in such a way. It turned me numb, angry, and, well, almost vengeful. “Why?” I said, over and over. “What did I do? Am I not doing more than others? Am I not doing what I’m supposed to be doing?”
Many of us have gone through similar situations, where our hearts are broken and our first instinct is to blame a higher power, especially if we’ve felt that we’ve done everything right. It’s heartbreaking, and often leads us to trauma, and is never healthy.
That’s what makes the central figure in the film, Latif, so relatable. Portrayed by Mahershala Ali, in what may be one of the best performances of the year, his wife has passed, leaving him to take care of his three children alone. A practicing Muslim with strong familial and religious ties to his local community, he is also precipitously serving as a hitman for Mike Mahmoudi, a rich security operator who has corruption seemingly flowing through his veins. Latif is grieving his wife and blaming God for putting him in an incredibly difficult position of wanting to maintain his and his family’s life.
How can he be both the father and the mother to his children, a hitman and a teacher in his community? He was barely their dad, but now he has to be their mom too.
That’s where faith really comes in to play. Yes, while the Latif’s Muslim background plays a big part in his story it really can be substituted for any belief system and have the same major point: find out who you are, and what your faith lets YOU be.
It’s only through the almost odyssey-like trials that he goes through that he finally gets his beliefs and his self pulled apart, ready to be put back together with himself at the core. From trying to find breast milk for the baby (because that’s all his wife wanted her to drink) to forcing his kids to stay off of the internet or play video games (because that’s what his faith demands) to tasks as a hitman, Latif is not his own person. The cinematography, the images and views we see as he slowly figures that out are tremendous. An overhead shot of him holding a Quran as he has just looked up his next target becomes that much more gut wrenching when we see the teething ring on the floor next to him. The camera centers on him as he walks through a bright red door in a strip club, countering what he’s told those around him of places like this. The high contrast in blacks, reds, whites, colors creates a purposeful tapestry. It’s a beautifully put together film.
Latif’s constant battle with his faith, blaming god for taking his wife after a sickness even though he takes lives for money, is fascinatingly presented. In fact, he’s ready to leave his faith because everything is collapsing around him, including his connection to his children. As they ask to find a mosque to pray, he’s so filled with anger that he snaps back, kicking his kids out of a car and telling them to go outside and pray. “The whole world is a mosque,” he had taught them when they were younger, for good intentions, but now he says it out of spite.
When he finally realizes his truth, that he’s to be his own person, that faith will support him being that singular person, it becomes a moment of clarity not only for him but for us as an audience. Tariq, arguably, makes us feel better about our own beliefs, our own selves, and our own place in the world.
Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother is a beautiful, triumphant film that has everything for everyone, including some of the best action, the best story-telling and the best character portrayals of the year. And when we’re done, it has some of the most positive, reaffirming messages as well.
I could never fill her shoes. Help me now Lord to fill my own.
RATING: 5/5
MASTERPIECE
Check out Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother in theaters starting this week.
This review is based on a Press Screening attended by the Editor and arranged by the Distributor. Read about how we do our reviews here.
