The title “Other Mommy” is misleading. The villainous demon haunting 8-year-old Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark) can take any form, including her father (Jay Duplass), her babysitter (Sean Kaufman), or even a complete stranger. But yes, much of the time it impersonates her mother (Jessica Chastain). The reason, I suspect, has less to do with the fraught mother-daughter relationship and more to do with Oscar-winner Chastain wanting to have fun playing a demon. Sadly, neither the performance nor the film is that much fun.
Bela interacts with Other Mommy, who desperately wants a hug so it can take over Bela’s body.
Unlike Regular Mommy, Other Mommy is warm and affectionate. But Bela knows that the demon is fake and evil, and soon the parents are wise to its plans. They whisk Bela from place to place in hopes of running from the demon, but it always catches up. Eventually the family realizes that they must face the demon themselves, and perhaps even scarier, tell each other some hard truths.
“Other Mommy” is quickly earning itself a reputation as one of the worst-reviewed movies of the year. It isn’t so much terrible in and of itself as it falls short of high expectations set by the highly-popular trailer. There are a few decent emotional beats surrounding the fracturing of the family dynamic. But those rare promising moments are efficiently snuffed out by the film indulging in every haunted-house cliché it can muster. If the appeal of the film lies in the promise of two Jessica Chastain performances for the price of one, please know that neither performance is worth half of one.
Grade: C-
“Other Mommy” is rated R for some bloody violence, and language. Its running time is 93 minutes.
Contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.
