"I Am Mother" is not the kind of movie that you will finish and immediately move on from, this one kind of lingers.
This story follows a girl, simply called Daughter, who is raised inside an underground bunker by a robot she calls Mother, From the very beginning, there is something eerie about the setup, The world outside has supposedly gone through an extinction event, and Mother's whole purpose is to raise Daughter to eventually help repopulate humanity once it is safe to go outside again, For most of Daughter's life, this bunker is the only world she knows, and Mother is the only parent she has ever had.
What got me right away was how the movie built trust between Daughter and Mother, only to slowly chip away at it, everything feels calm and controlled at first, almost too controlled, and you start to notice these small cracks, these moments where Mother's instructions feel less like care and more like control, so I found myself questioning things right alongside Daughter, which is exactly what a movie like this should do.
Then a wounded woman shows up from outside the bunker, and that is where everything shifts, suddenly Daughter, and the audience, is given a completely different version of reality than what Mother has been teaching all along, i loved this part because it forces you to sit in uncertainty, you do not know who to believe, Mother who raised her with rules and structure, or this stranger who claims the outside world is not what she has been told.
Honestly, the pacing worked really well for me here, it is a slow burn, there is no denying that, but every scene felt like it was building toward something instead of just filling time and the tension is quiet for most of the movie, it is not about jump scares or big action sequences, it is about that creeping feeling that something is deeply wrong, even when you cannot quite explain what.
Clara Rugaard did such a good job carrying this movie as Daughter, she had to portray someone who is intelligent, but also sheltered and slowly unraveling as her worldview gets challenged, and she pulled that off really well, And Mother, the robot, honestly gave one of the most unsettling performances in the movie without even having a human face, the voice alone did so much work.
So I want to be honest , this movie is not for everyone, if you need a lot of action or fast movement , yeah here you might get bored, because this movie needs you to be patient and If you wait ,then it will reward you.
The end of the movie is really surprising. I do not want to give it all away, It makes you think about everything that happened, I will say that it completely recontextualizes everything you thought you understood about Mother, about Daughter, and about what actually happened to the world outside, I sat there afterward just staring at the screen, replaying scenes in my head, trying to figure out what was real and what was manipulation all along.
Would I recommend "I Am Mother" you? Yes, especially if you like movies that makes you think, this movie is not something you watch to feel good. It makes you feel and In a good way , It stays with you even after the credits roll.
If you like psychological sci- fic , something that makes you think and characters that are complicated then you should watch "I Am Mother", It is absolutely worth your time.
Rating: 100/100