Anne Hathaway headlines both fashion crowdpleaser 'The Devil Wears Prada' and fashion psychodrama 'Mother Mary'. Both have their merits, but we're leaning for the weird one this week...
Once in a blue moon, a rare cinematic fluke occurs. The stars align and audiences are treated to that most special of events: a Hathaweek.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
For the heathens among you, it’s when the release dates of two movies featuring the considerable talents of Anne Hathaway coincide. And lo and behold, 2026’s Hathaweek is special, as both films share a common thread. Literally, as they deal with fashion.
To a point.
The first is The Devil Wears Prada 2, the two-decades-in-the-waiting sequel to the 2006 hit, which is much better than anyone could have hoped. There are decent gags, sly digs at the current state of modern journalism, swanky outfits, and the delightful return of the original cast. Despite some questionable decisions and it feeling like a bit of a ret(h)read, it’s a fun watch.
However decent the sequel is, it’s the second Hathaway-starrer which we’re recommending this week: Mother Mary, the new film by writer-director David Lowery.
There’s every chance its existence may have passed you by, considering it doesn’t have the marketing dollars of David Frankel’s crowdpleaser, but you’d do well to seek it out.
The filmmaker behind A Ghost Story, Pete’s Dragon and The Green Knight directs Hathaway, who plays the titular pop star Mother Mary. Three days before her desperately sought comeback, which comes in the wake of a mysterious onstage accident, she shows up at the doorstep of her former friend and designer, Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel). They haven’t spoken in 10 years, and there’s still “bile rising” over their past creative break-up.
Mother Mary begs Sam to make her a dress for the headline show, one which will embody her comeback and reinvention.
Despite referring to popstar as a “tumour”, the dressmaker grudgingly agrees to engage in a “transubstantiation of feeling” with Mother Mary, in which the singer shares her feelings and Sam translates them into fashion. Then things get weird...
What follows is a strange chamber piece which evolves into a Gothic ghost story, in which the metaphysical meets the spiritual, and eventually leads to the exorcism of mutual trauma.
Sounds like a lot? It is. But it’s a lot with a ghost made of shimmering red fabric.
Lowery creates a dread-infused meditation on creativity, emotional closure, and how the darkness and the divine are inseparable within artistic ambition. This last element is felt throughout in religious iconography: from the pop icon’s stage name, the “transubstantiation”, to the costumes and a figurative haunting of the past manifesting in a very material way, the two central protagonists are shrouded in thematically weighty cues.
Hathaway is excellent as the Lady Gaga-esque Mother Mary, playing a frequently pathetic figure who is clearly suffering from a sort of emotional stuntedness and who desperately seeks to conjure a new spark with her new single inspired by Einstein’s principle of “spooky action at a distance” - a reference to quantum entanglement. It’s a ponderous reference in a resolutely verbose screenplay.
As Mother Mary says at one point: “These metaphors are exhausting.”
Some will be turned off by the self-serious rhetoric stylings; others will gradually appreciate that the pretentious-sounding dialogue has purpose.
As for Coel, she is brilliant as the glacial and vengeful Sam, also making the most every line and teasing out the humour within philosophical musings.
Elsewhere, special mentions go to costume designer Bina Daigeler (Tár, The Room Next Door), as well as Charli XCX, producer Jack Antonoff, and FKA twigs – who penned some genuine bangers for the soundtrack. Once more, kudos to Hathaway, as she credibly performs the songs during flashback sequences.
To say more would be to spoil the fun.
If you have to pick a Hathaway fashion fantasy, make it Mother Mary. It’s the warped companion piece to The Devil Wears Prada 2, as well as the perfect double-bill pick to Peter Strickland’s engrossingly surreal In Fabric. Moreover, in an industry so keen on pre-existing IPs, sequels, prequels and sanitised music biopics, this is the kind of bold, extravagant fare that will leave a mark. Certainly haunt you. Like a piece of shimmering red fabric.
Mother Mary is out in select cinemas now. The 'Mother Mary: Greatest Hits EP', the Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX produced soundtrack, is also out now via A24 Music.
