Mother May I

Mother May I is a very strange film. The set up would make you think that what you're about to see is a brilliantly acted and original haunting/possession movie but then sadly it decides to be too pretentious for its own good and settles for being a mediocre allegory.

The basic premise is that Emmett moves into his estranged mothers house on the event of her death along his fiancé Anye (played by Kyle Gallner and Holland Roden) who after taking mushrooms begins to behave exactly like the deceased matriarch of the family. Now that's a freudian nightmare if I've ever heard of one and if it followed the strict possession route, which it does for the first two acts of the film this would have been a very uncomfortable and expertly acted Hitchcockian horror/thriller.

Holland Roden and Kyle Gallner are so good in this, Holland Roden is transformative in her ability to play the dual role of Emmett's fiancé and his mother and Kyle Gallner is one of the finest young actors around today. All the tension in the film is due to their ability to entrap you in the emotion to their ever increasingly intense conversations as both leads spiral out of control. 

It's a real shame that there wasn't more to the story, just when it feels like its going for a big reveal it flounders for no good reason at all. Everything up until the ending would have earned it a really high score from me but as it stands it's a very mediocre film with two truly great performances.