The film follows a pair of twin brothers, Elias and Lukas - who are patiently awaiting their mother's return after undergoing plastic-surgery. When their mother (Susanne Wuest) returns home, her face is covered in bandages and she seems different, in some way.
As the film unfolds, Lukas and Elias begin to believe that the person in the bandages is not their mother, and in fact, somebody completely different.
I don't want to give too much away, because the plot development is very intriguing, and there's a killer twist at the end of the film, which I did not expect at all.
I'd like to firstly start off by saying that I believe that the trailer ("the scariest trailer of all time"), and the film itself, were marketed horribly. In the same case as this year's Babadook, the film is set up to be this petrifying 'horror' film for a wide audience with plenty of jump-scares. But in the case of Goodnight Mommy and the Babadook, we're presented with something much more terrifying - a realistic, artistic representation of grief and mental illness as a whole. So when you watch Goodnight Mommy, don't expect some sort of thrill-ride that follows the same 'horror' formula as every other big film this year, instead expect a beautifully shot, directed and acted art-house film with plenty to think about.
Now we have that out of the way, I'd like to give my opinion on the film, and you know what? I fucking loved it. I avoided all reviews of the film, anyone posting about it on social media, just so I didn't have any pre-dispositions regarding the film. The only thing that I watched that related to the film was the trailer, and boy was I ready for a terrifying experience.
Although, like I mentioned before, the trailer is completely misleading. The film itself is much more terrifying that you'd imagine, because a lot of the context and the darkest aspects of this film aren't in the trailer at all.
There are moments where you feel sympathy for the boys, then the mother, then the boys, then the mother, and you're on this emotional rollercoaster of fear and anxiety and you just can't look away.
It's one of those films that I would watch again, and probably one more time after that, just to experience the ambience and the mood that this film created.
I give Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh Ich seh) four and a half bandaged faces out of five.
Review By. James C. Murray
