In My Mother’s Skin review - A Nightmarish Fairy Tale of Resilience

(Author’s note: Ahoy there, Cinegeeks! Roy here. For the next few posts, I’ll be going over 4 movies that we really tried to talk about on the Podcast but weren’t able to; to know the reasons why, listen to our podcast episode reviewing the fantastic movie KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.

Next up: IN MY MOTHER’S SKIN.)

Amazon Prime Video has really been stepping up its Filipino language slate in recent times. What once was the monopoly of fellow streaming giant Netflix has now become a two-player game, with Prime being the home of hidden Filipino gems such as Big Night! and Ten Little Mistresses. While those are what can be considered as more crowd-pleasing fare, Amazon’s latest offering is a much harder pill to swallow, but those who will power through it will be rewarded with a tale of resilience through the world’s nihilism.

In My Mother’s Skin, written and directed by Kenneth Dagatan, tells the story of a young girl and her family just trying to make it to the end of World War 2. Set in the rural outskirts of the Philippines, things turn for the worse when her father sojourns unexpectedly to get help, and her mother’s (Beauty Gonzales) existing illness worsens. Running out of options, Tala (an absolutely electric performance by Felicity Kyle Napuli) makes a wish to a woodland fairy (Jasmine Curtis-Smith) for her mother’s good health. What the entity seeks in return may be too much for the young girl to handle.

Dagatan crafts a slow-burning fever dream of Filipino Gothic, ripping imagery straight out of nightmares. Cinematographer Russell Morton crafts shots designed to linger with you long after their respective scenes have ended, and it’s this ethereal nature of the images on-screen that contributes to the hair-raising nature of the proceedings.

Much has been and will be said about certain shots being too darkly lit; everything from “The movie’s okay, but it would be better If only I can see what’s going on” to “I can’t see anything, screw this movie.” I’ll take the middle ground and say that given the unearthly nature of the film, creative liberty surely is at play here. However, there are indeed some parts where a bit more brightness would’ve been appreciated. Added illumination would have benefited a climactic confrontation, seeing as by that point in the film, the mystery behind the monstrosity lingering in the proceedings had already been revealed.

Felicity Kyle Napuli as Tala is a revelation. The film rests squarely on her shoulders, asking her to embody both emotional fortitude and slowly withering conviction, and she realizes this balancing act wonderfully. Most of her scenes with either Beauty Gonzales or Jasmine Curtis-Smith require her to match her adult co-star’s energy, which she matches or even surpasses in some cases. One climactic scene in the third act between Napuli and Curtis-Smith would’ve fallen apart in a lesser child actor’s hands, but Napuli’s verve simply is too much for the screen to contain. In the words of Emperor Palpatine, we shall be watching her career with great interest.

We were fortunate enough to have been invited to the Media Screening of this film and were able to glean information from Napuli and Curtis-Smith during a Q&A held afterward. During the session, Curtis-Smith revealed that Dagatan had one recent collective nightmare in mind in crafting this tale of abject hopelessness: the recent COVID-19 pandemic. For many of us, that was the harsh reality we faced as recently as a few years ago when COVID-19 ravaged the world and forced everyone to reckon with everything they’d come to learn about themselves and the world thus far. Some of us were fortunate enough to have been cooped up in swanky, well-stocked abodes, whereas some of us dealt with the skin-and-bones definition of “fight or flight” - we had to scratch and claw every day to survive even just one day.

Human desperation is a strange thing, ain’t it? I’m sure many of you, my dear Cinegeeks, have had a time or two in your life where you felt that all the metaphorical chips in your life were on the line. That one fork in the road of your life where you just had to go “all-in” and say f**k it, consequences be damned. Sometimes, you win! The risk pays off, and you’re actually better off for it. What happens, though, if that risk ends up costing more than what you were comfortable with betting? In My Mother’s Skin holds up a ghastly mirror and asks us to reckon with our choice. We might not end up liking what we see.

In My Mother's Skin streams on Amazon Prime Video on October 12, 2023.

Watch the trailer here: