I am Mother is another film offering from Netflix. The film is essentially a bottle show. with only two actors and special effects. The premise is that life on earth has been extinguished by an event and thousands of embryos are stored safely in an underground vault ready to repopulate the world.
The vault is run by a droid which activates one of the embryos and then raises the child. The child, known only as daughter, is tested periodically and grows up to understand her world. Right from the get go we worry about the droid Mother. If 2001: A space odyssey taught us anything then it taught us to beware the AI. Aside from this film the whole film was very reminiscent of 10 Cloverfield Lane.
With such a small cast, mostly Daughter and Mother until Woman turns up the film is surprisingly engaging. We get to experience life underground although I did feel Daughters curiosity about the outside was somewhat lacking. I also felt that her development was flawed, she was for all intents and purposes a well rounded individual when grown up something I find hard to believe from a life time underground and with only a droid for company, they do say it takes a village to raise a child.
The drama was well handled and the action sequences reasonable if a little predictable. The films tone and pace picks up outside the vault and builds to a touching finale sequence, however the last scene calls into question much we have seen and leaves us with several questions regarding the future of Daughter, her new brother and the human race as a whole.
The core theme and motivation of Mother has been seen in many books and films in the past but we got to see it here in macrocosm although I never felt I got a full handle on how it was all achieved.
The acting was good and the effects believable. The script in places was a little shaky and I felt the certain elements could have been amplified to increase the impact of the ending.
All in all another enjoyable slice of Sci-fi from Netflix.
Into the Nebula 
Leave a Reply