You Are Not My Mother - FrightFest Glasgow 2022

A baby buggy left in the middle of the road is the disturbing image that opens You Are Not My Mother in this film that is set in the hard suburbs of Dublin yet plays towards Ireland’s rich tradition of folklore and superstition.

Char (Hazel Doupe) is a shy schoolgirl who has a hard life at home with her mother Angela (Carolyn Bracken) and grandmother (Ingrid Craigie). They are slightly dysfunctional with nan not seeming to like her daughter too much and hiding something from Char. School is no solace as she is bullied by other girls despite her best attempts to avoid them, and escalates to extremes later on.

It’s during the school run that Angela nearly hits a horse and after dropping Char off, runs the car off the road and disappears. This inevitably calls in the Garda and her uncle Aaron (Paul Reid). With cutting comments coming from a sedentary nan, she shows her support for Char by making her a protection ball out of twigs and leaves. This folds in well with the approaching Halloween which the community is preparing to celebrate, legally or not.

A nightmare wakes Char and going downstairs she opens the front door to find her mother there. After an examination Angela is released with a bin bag full of prescriptions that added to her better mood brings out disturbing elements of her character.

The film is carefully set up by debut writer/director Clare Dolan feeding and blending the grey of the suburbs, the bullying and bullied, dysfunctional family and the supernatural. This all works very well working up the story and the characters until the film takes a tip towards the latter. The cast are uniformly excellent, Doupe is a star in the making the pressure on Char is palpable as she tries to keep the family together, while dealing with vicious bullies.

There isn’t a great deal of tension more a grim foreboding as things happen to people. There’s also maybe a little too much reliance on set piece scenes such as Angela’s manic dancing when she gets home, and the school trip to a museum with references to faerie and sacred sites. These however are minor matters as overall the film has a definite charge of the unpleasant running through it helped by an excellent visual and sound design.

You are Not My Mother is released in UK cinemas and digital on 8 April.