Goodnight Mommy Fantasia Movie Review

When you’re 9 years old and your mother is not acting like who she usually is, it can be terrifying. This is what Lukas and Elias experience in the Austrian film “Goodnight Mommy”, making its Quebec premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival.

Lukas and Elias are twin brothers who live in a beautiful, secluded home with their mother. She works onscreen in the world of television and has just undergone a painful facial surgery, leaving her entire face, minus the eyes and mouth, bandaged up. The boys act as boys usually do: exploring the nearby rural lands, having burping contests, and playing video games. However, their mother is acting much more severe and harsh than she usually is, being a strict mother to begin with. She refuses to talk or even feed one of the brothers and begins to act in vicious manners. Lukas and Elias are now convinced that the woman in their home is not their mother and they are determined to make her confess and reveal where the true matriarch of the house really is. And they’ll do it whatever it takes to make her talk.

“Goodnight Mommy” has first-time actors Elias & Lukas Schwarz and the two young boys deliver brilliant performances. You can see that they have a genuine chemistry, being real-life twins. Their mother, played by Susanne Wuest, also plays her character beautifully, going from a loving, yet strict, mother in the very beginning, to a psychologically, and sometimes physically, threatening monster. So much that you find yourself desperately rooting for the two boys, whom you cannot possibly hate with their attaching personas, as they torture their mother after having tied her to her bed.

Like many “is it really him/her?” movies, “Goodnight Mommy” often has you doubting and switching back and forth on your own opinion on the “villain”. Some details have you persuaded that the woman isn’t the twins’ mother, then further details have you putting in question what you were considering minutes before.

Some chilling scenes when you come to think that two brothers are potentially doing this to their own mother involve a magnifying glass, liquid glue, and scissors. However, do not go into this sensational motion picture expecting a movie based on gore and torture scenes. It is a psychological thriller, sprinkled with some cringe-inducing moments, tightly wrapped together with some splendid performances. “Goodnight Mommy” deserves a solid 4.5 stars out of 5.