You Are Not My Mother

You Are Not My Mother is dominated by a range of women characters who collectively challenge and reveal the complexities of the “strong female character” cliche. Tensions between binaries such as strength/weakness and good/evil are rendered far more sophisticated and difficult to unknot here in a way that is subtly subversive, disguised as it is as a fun, spooky, popcorn-friendly horror film. What makes You Are Not My Mother such compelling viewing is how it seeks to defamiliarize our moral and ideological expectations surrounding women and the broader concept of strength, challenging us to think in more complex ways about gender and power.