The Netflix Original Film, I Am Mother, is a surprisingly interesting and thought-provoking film about a human girl who is raised by a robot in the aftermath of an extinction-level event taking place on Earth.
The film is about trust and family, with our protagonist, simply named Daughter, being pulled between her parental robot, Mother, and the first other human being she has ever seen, who is simply credited as ‘Woman’.
Right off the bat you may be a bit confused by the lack of actual names used in the film, but I feel that this works in it’s favour; It makes sense that a robot designated as ‘Mother’ would simply name it’s daughter ‘Daughter’. It also serves to drive a gap between Daughter and the idea of what it means to be human, as one of the most impactful lines of the film comes within the first ten minutes, with Daughter stating “I don’t want to be human, humans destroyed everything”. Furthermore, the lack of a name for the other ‘Woman’ in the story serves to drive a wedge between her and what it means to be human too… Though I’m going to issue a spoiler warning now before I explain why.
The reason the Woman struggles with humanity is because she left it behind, choosing to abandon her group of survivors and lying about their presence to Daughter, in order to manipulate her. This very same thing is done by Mother, who lies about the state of the outside world and the reason for the Woman’s injury, during her introduction, all for the purpose of keeping Daughter on her own side. Thus Daughter is literally pulled between humanity and a machine.
But what makes this dynamic between the three characters work?
The answer is in their relationships which are easy to buy into, and feel very real. The film opens by showing us Mother raising Daughter and doing all the things that a human mother would, including schooling her, giving her exams, cooking dinner and nursing wounds. Throughout the film there is a physical closeness between the two, who frequently hug and rest on one-and-other, making their relationship appear very genuine. In fact if this film were entirely dedicated to just Mother raising Daughter, and the implications of what would happen to a human under a robotic parental figure, I would still be invested in it.
As for the Woman, she works because of how differently she sees herself from Mother, who she deeply fears and distrusts, despite behaving in the same way as her by lying to Daughter for personal gain. The only real difference between them is that, as a robot, Mother is cold and calculating, whilst the Woman is emotional and distraught.
When it all comes to a close though, both Mother and the Woman are both revealed to be twisted, sinister people, who corrupt the innocent Daughter into something almost as bad as them. This ultimately leaves us with an ambiguous, but satisfying, ending.
I won’t spoil the specifics, because I truly feel hearing it all from me here would ruin your enjoyment of the film, should you choose to watch it.
This film isn’t flawless, however, and certainly has aspects that might push some viewers away; The acting, for instance, can sometimes be unconvincing and often takes away the intended impact from the more emotional scenes. While it isn’t bad, it certainly isn’t amazing; It walks a fine line between passable and good, which is reason enough for some people to tune-out.
The second, and bigger flaw, in the movie is that it often feels like Daughter lacks any and all motivation for going against Mother’s word. The driving motivations for her character are her desires to have a human friend and her curiosity about the outside world, which is reason enough for her to listen to the Woman and grow a distrust for Mother. And although the plot-threads flow together nicely on paper, they just don’t feel natural in how we see them. For example, why would Daughter listen to a Woman who held her at gunpoint, tired to kill Mother and who consistently antagonises her and her parental figure? Having been raised by Mother for her entire life and knowing that Mother was the only thing she had in the whole world, Daughter showed an easy willingness to put that at risk, because a strange outsider, who tried to kill her, told her that robots are actually evil.
Daughter has no reason to believe this because she has been isolated from the world for her entire life with a robot, who has done nothing but show her love and support.
Despite acknowledging all of these flaws, however, I couldn’t help but enjoy the film anyway. The design of Mother is beautiful and the voice-acting for her is the best acting in the movie, as I often found myself questioning to what extent does Mother actually understand human emotion, and to what extent is she just following her programming when she interacts with the human characters. The fact that it presented me with these questions is largely why I enjoyed it.
I do recommend you give this film a try. By no means is it perfect, but it’s decent and original science-fiction drama with plenty to offer.
Alex Jordan 