Review: The Good Mother

Image courtesy of Vertical Entertainment.

There's a better movie hiding somewhere within "The Good Mother," a dramatic thriller directed by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte that is centered around the opioid crisis. In fact, glimpses of that movie can be seen during the first half of the picture, which is set in Albany and focuses on an alcoholic journalist named Marissa (Hilary Swank), who learns from her son, Toby (Jack Reynor), a cop, that her other son has been shot to death in what appears to be a drug-related crime.

Although upset by this tragic turn of events, both Toby and Marissa appear to have been resigned to such a fate for Michael, a once-aspiring baseball player who became hooked on opioids at a young age after suffering a sports injury. At the funeral, Marissa slaps Michael's girlfriend - Paige (Olivia Cooke) - because she blames her for the drug habits shared between the younger woman and Michael, but feels guilty after learning that Paige is pregnant.

Shortly thereafter, Paige discovers a large stash of a drug known as "Mother's Milk" in her apartment, and two men break into the apartment to seemingly get their hands on it. Paige escapes and gives the drugs to Toby, who says he believes that a mutual friend of Michael and Paige - Ducky (Hopper Penn) - might have been responsible not only for the drug stash, but also Michael's death.

While Marissa is on a break from work - her editor seems to continually suggest she should be taking time off - she and Paige begin nosing around and doing their own detective work. Marissa suggests that she might use whatever she finds for an article, although there are only a few instances in which she attempts to interview anyone. There's a particularly harrowing sequence during which another woman recounts how she lost her daughter to drugs during a group counseling session - and, unfortunately, we never hear from this character again.

In fact, the second half of the film becomes more of a mystery - and one in which a major plot twist changes the film's entire trajectory. For starters, the twist is one that I saw coming - but it's also one that detracts from the film's somber take on the opioid crisis (the picture is set in 2016 during the height of the crisis) because the twist is somewhat outlandish and mostly unexplained, and it threatens to suck the air out of the rest of the film.

At the film's end, Marissa bangs out a long article in which she relays her own personal struggles with the opioid crisis and how it affected her family - but as I'd mentioned, she appears to do little in the way of interviews and research, and seems to be winging it. The film's ending is left open to interpretation in terms of whether Marissa will actually get the article published, for reasons I won't divulge here.

Swank does her best with the role, but similar to the characters portrayed by Reynor and Cooke, her character is underwritten. Only Karen Aldridge's mother character - who delivers the monologue during the group session - leaves much of an impression. Had the film focused on her struggles - or given Swank's character challenges that didn't involve over-the-top plot twists, "The Good Mother" might have been better. As such, it's atmospheric - the streets of Albany are well utilized for this particular story - and watchable, but uneven.

supposedly journalist but not interviewing anyone - but then bangs out story at end

plot twist a little silly