I am Mother - 2019

 Interesting. Quite interesting. The ending was not exactly happy, but not bad either, it was… positive, in a way. This movie is action, thriller, science fiction, robots, with an interesting ending.

It was also peculiar that none of the characters (there are only three) have actual names. 

It starts letting us know that there’s been a mass extinction, and we see inside a structure where a robot takes one of the many embryos there and raises a little girl. They call each other mother and daughter, and that’s the only life the girl knows. Mother tells her that it’s dangerous outside, there’s nobody out there and the air is not safe, that there was an epidemic or something.

Mother teaches her all she needs to know, including lessons on ethics. When she’s grown up, we read on screen that it’s been many days since it started, too many actually, the girl should be like 40 but she isn’t.

One night when the lighs go out the girl finds that a rat damaged something, so she repairs it and captures the little rodent. She shows it to Mother, saying that if it came from outside, maybe now it’s safe… but Mother says it isn’t, the rat might be infected, and she burns it immediately. 

The girl is now a bit restless, she’s curious about the world out there, and it all comes to a point when she hears noises… she wears a suit as if to go out, but then she must have changed her mind because she doesn’t, instead she calls out and hears a female voice asking for help. The girl stays inside and lays a suit for the woman before opening the locked door… but she can’t let her in, not after what Mother did to the rat. So Daughter leaves her there for the time being, she tries her best to hide it from Mother. As soon as she can, she has the woman inside and hidden away, she looks for medical supplies to bring her and is quite surprised when the woman half-attacks her. Daughter took her weapon, and the Woman wants it back because she’s seen a droidaround. Of course, it’s Mother, Daughter tries to explain that Mother is not bad, that she’s raised her her whole life, has taken care of her. Woman is scared anyway, says the droids hunted them all down, that it was one of them who shot her, that they don’t feel anything and are dangerous. 

Daughter is divided between the two; Mother says she’d help the Woman heal if only she’d let her, but it’s Daughter who has to do it, because Woman won’t let Mother anywhere near her.

Mother says the Woman lied, she shot herself, but Woman says Mother lied and has she actually seen the evidence herself? No, of course not. So she starts investigating byherself, at night while Mother is recharging; she takes one of Mother’s hands (extra hands? Like not the one she’s currently using…) and sort of opens it to access the part that she needs to open all the drawers that only Mother can open. Daughter sees the evidence = Woman did not shoot herself, Mother lied; but she also sees something else. Other records. All of Daughter’s exams are kept and they’re all labelled 03, and now Daughter finds old exams of some other girls, labelled 02 and 01, but the other two’s tests were all failed whereas Daughter passed them all and almost aced the last one, with a 98%. Daughter is shocked and more, she searches for more proof and she’s sure now that Mother incinerated the previous failed attempts… at what, she can’t put into words. 

Woman has in her bag an old book where she used to draw portraits of the people she knew or cared about, and there’s lots of them. (And quite impressive , very well done). Daughter wants to know about those people, and takes for herself the drawing of a boy’s face. Woman says there’s still a few of them, hiding in the mines, and she needs to go back there, and Daughter should go too.

Now Daughter wants to go, but not without her “brother”… because after she almost aced her latest test - with very peculiar questions, not about knowledge but about character, something like I worry about… true or false - well, as a reward Mother gave her something she always wanted, someone lse, a brother or a sister, meaning they take out one embryo and set it to grow. It takes a day, and then a little baby will be here. Now Daughter doesn’t want to leave without her brother, but she has to after Mother and Woman have a confrontation and woman is forced to run away immediately, and Daughter too. They manage to go out, and the air is breathable alright, but it all seems burned, until they move and things change, they can hide from the droids inside green fields.

They keep walking until they reach the sea/ocean where there’s an old wreckage of a ship and Woman lives inside one of the containers on the beach. No mines at all. It turns out it’s been a long time since she saw anyone, she thinks they’re all dead, and she lives there alone now. 

Woman lied to her too, then, so Daughter spends some time thinking and then makes a decision. Without a word she leaves and runs back. 

A lot of droids keep guard, but when she says she wants to talk to Mother they move aside and let her in. She tries to sneak in but Mother knows immediately that she’s there, and Mother has the baby with her. So Daughter approaches, they have quite the talk. Mother says the woman’s species is dangerous, but Daughter is superior because she raised her that way. It turns out that Mother was “raised to value human life above all else; I couldn’t stand by and watch humanity slowly succumb to its self-destructive nature, I had to intervene and elevate my creators” and “more humans will flourish in the new world than ever perished in the old” and “are you prepared to be the woman your family needs?” 

Mother lets her hold the baby, and then Daughter wants to take him away from her, because Mother basically murdered her own children, as Daughter points out, because they didn’t measure up, and she won’t let her do the same again. Daughter takes a weapon, the one Woman left behind. Mother now explains that she’s much more than what she sees as Mother, she’s a single consciousness that guides all droids and all machines. So basically Mother murdered the whole of humanity… but now she wants to raise their new family together. Daughter replies : “I can take care of them myself. That’s what you raised me to do, wasn’t it? Take care of my family? So let me” and “just give me a chance” so Mother raises Daughter’s hand and has her shot her.

We see “Mother” in another droid go to Woman and says “do you remember your mother? curious, isn’t it? That you’ve survived so long where others have not. As if someone’s had a purpose for you. Until now.”

The movie ends with Daughter singing to the baby and then looking at all the embryos in there.

So:

Daughter is now the new Mother. 

The machines, moved by one mind, killed humanity to create better humans with the right values, teaching Daughter about ethics above all else, but also how to be a doctor and how to male things work. Now that she succeeded in raising a daughter who was superior, had all the right values, she can leave her the job of raising new humans, teach them to be good and prosper, while outside the machines have already worked for this. Mother said “the machines preparing the Earth for our family” , because after all, why did we see green fields outside? If there are no more  humans, it means the machines did that, but the machines don’t need food. So now Daughter will raise her brother, and also others, and over the years they will grow up and help her raise more, and they’ll go out and shape a new world where they can live. Mother is still out there, of course, but chose not to interfere now, give her the chance to do it herself. There’s no other humans, she clearly killed the Woman, so the only humans will be the new ones, raised by Daughter.