Kate (Lora Burke) and her daughter Beth live alone in an isolated farmhouse in the woods, but when Kate slowly begins to suspect that something sinister is happening, her motherly instincts are put to the test.
Craig Wallace
I was lured into watching the 2021 thriller “Motherly” given the movie’s cover/poster. And yeah, I found that to be rather interesting and nicely constructed. Had I heard about “Motherly” prior to watching it in 2022? No, not even a single word. So I didn’t know what to expect from writers Ian Malone and Craig David Wallace.
And I will say that “Motherly” started out alright, but then the movie quickly fell into a monotonous pace and trot, from where it never actually recovered. So you are not in for a grand experience of thriller cinema here. In fact, the pacing of the storyline rather took away the majority of enjoyment from the movie.
The storyline was just too mundane and bland for my liking, and the slow monotonous pacing didn’t really help one bit. So I wasn’t particularly entertained or impressed with director Craig David Wallace’s 2021 movie. Sure, I managed to endure it to the end, but I wasn’t particularly enjoying the movie.
And while we are talking about endings, then there is a surprise twist to “Motherly”. Was it a good or bad ending? Well, that it certainly up for debate and something of a personal preference, of course. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the ending, though it was a surprise ending that I didn’t see coming. But I have to admit that I just didn’t care about the movie or the characters in it enough to actually be swooped away by the surprise ending.
One thing that “Motherly” has working for it is the acting performances. Despite of having a subpar script and storyline to work with, then the acting performances in the movie were actually quite good. And that has to count for something, right?
For a thriller then “Motherly” was a swing and a miss. And my rating of director Craig David Wallace’s movie lands on a generous three out of ten stars.