In Kate Dolan’s feature directorial debut, “You Are Not My Mother,” a woman goes missing — and she’s not quite herself when she returns. A new trailer for the horror pic has arrived and sees the woman’s daughter, Char (Hazel Doupe), trying to figure out what happened.
“Mom, where did you go?” Char asks. “I can’t tell you. Not yet,” her mother, Angela (Carolyn Bracken), replies.
Angela’s appearance hasn’t changed but Char and her grandmother Rita (Ingrid Craigie) can sense something is very wrong. “She might look and sound the same, but Angela’s behavior has become increasingly erratic and frightening, as if she has been replaced by a malevolent force,” the film’s synopsis teases.
Rita might hold the key to solving the mystery, and saving Angela. “There’s things I need to tell you, Char,” Rita says. “It’s not your mother up there. If we don’t do something, we’ll never get her back. And then they’ll try to take you.”
Dolan told Women and Hollywood that “the inspiration for writing [‘You Are Not My Mother’] came from personal experiences I had growing up, and also from Irish folk history.” She explained, “In 1895 a woman named Bridget Cleary was burned alive by her husband when he thought she was a changeling. There are many other stories like this, normally where the women come to a tragic end. I wanted to flip some of those tales on their heads and write a story with three generations of nuanced women.”
“You Are Not My Mother” hits theaters and on demand March 25. It screened at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.
