Rating: R | Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: September 1st, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Vertical Entertainment
Director(s): Miles Joris-Peyrafitte
Writer(s): Miles Joris-Peyrafitte & Madison Harrison

Don’t I get to know who killed my son?

Michael wasn’t using at the time of his death. At least, that’s what his pregnant girlfriend (Olivia Cooke’s Paige) tells his mother (Hilary Swank’s Marissa) after the latter smacks the former across the face at his funeral. Is this something we should believe? How about after a group of masked men break into Paige’s home looking for the two bricks of fentanyl-spiked heroin she found in Michael’s suitcase?

It ultimately doesn’t matter. Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s The Good Mother isn’t as interested in who Michael was or the trouble he was in to get shot on the street in cold blood as it is in constructing a scenario of wall-to-wall mistrust. He and co-writer Madison Harrison have thrown together a mix of duplicitous characters for the sole purpose of keeping the audience in the dark to the nihilistic truth that good people do bad things. And the only way to stop them is for someone they love to choose humanity above blood.

Marissa is a drunk journalist who hasn’t written a story since her husband died, constantly lying about her whereabouts to feed the addiction. Paige has always been messed up in Michael’s drug-life and still covers for their friend Ducky (Hopper Penn) while keeping collateral for herself. And Michael’s brother Toby (Jack Reynor) is a cop—you don’t get more duplicitous than that. While they each grieve in their own self-destructive ways, they do want his killer brought to justice. If only to distract from their own complicity.

That’s what should captivate. Why Michael became an addict in the first place. Marissa kicking him out of the house after he stole from her. Toby not arresting him. Their father dying. Guilt is a powerful drug in and of itself and it drives each of them to blame themselves for their role while suffering the self-inflicted justice they dole out. Sadly, Joris-Peyrafitte doesn’t care enough about this emotional drama to let it be more than afterthought to his plot-heavy crime narrative.

There are plenty of little moments where you see beneath the surface of who these characters need to be for the mystery, but they always seem to arrive too late where investing in them is concerned. I honestly didn’t care about anyone on-screen because, despite feeling fully formed in their performances (the acting is solid), they’re trapped by the purposeful machinations of a familiar reveal hinging upon obvious contrasts and easy preconceptions. Marissa, Paige, and Toby are too busy fulfilling those specific roles to exist beyond them.

I don’t therefore think The Good Mother has any real need for subsequent viewings. There’s nothing deeper going on here than initial observation can surmise. Marissa and Paige aren’t even really “working together” like the synopsis pretends. They stumble upon some discoveries on their own by sheer happenstance because the circle of victims and perpetrators is too small to avoid it. The ending hopes to add intrigue with a clumsy bit of faux ambiguity, but not nearly enough to make you think twice.

The film is an empty calorie page-turner. A primetime movie of the week that forgets its compelling true-life tragedies are worth more than being rendered as color for generic twists and turns. There’s just enough to stay interested in the moment before erasing it from your memory as you move on to the next.

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Olivia Cooke and Hilary Swank in THE GOOD MOTHER; courtesy of Vertical.