The grief-stricken anxiety hellscape of Motherhood in film, lately
Thoughts on 'Hamnet' and 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You' and more nuanced examinations of Motherhood, lately - and where the next wave of these stories may come from.
Mother Movies
I had the great fortune to watch two films fairly back-to-back that totally unwound and moved me, and they were;
Hamnet directed by Chloé Zhao, based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell - After losing their son Hamnet to plague, Agnes and William Shakespeare grapple with grief in 16th-century England. A healer, Agnes must find strength to care for her surviving children while processing her devastating loss.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You written and directed by Mary Bronstein - While trying to manage her own life and career, a woman on the verge of a breakdown must cope with her daughter’s illness, an absent husband, a missing person, and an unusual relationship with her therapist.
I did thoroughly love both these films - and while I thought Zhao’s direction of Hamnet made it truly spectacular, I was more impressed by the claustrophobic one-woman powerhouse performance of Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs, while also still loving Jessie Buckley’s turn as Shakespeare’s witch wife, Agnes.
And then the Golden Globes came around, and Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley won for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, while Rose Byrne won in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. I was chuffed! My two fave performances in 2025 movies, and they both walked away with something (shame it can’t happen at the Oscars, who don’t split along genre-categories).
And then Golden Globes host Nikki Glaser made a very prescient point that pulled me up short …
Huh. I thought.
She’s not wrong.
I began to muse on what these dazzling, star-turn movies commentating on motherhood and women’s complex interior lives was reflecting of the times.
Mother May I
Both Hamnet and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You spin around motherhood - love, loss, and lunacy.
Matt Minton writing for Variety noted this too, in; How ‘Hamnet,’ ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ and More Films Explore Modern Anxieties Around Parenthood and Raising Kids - and from his opening line it’s clear he’s also trying to fit these films and their commentaries, into the present-day political;
What does it mean to bring a child into today’s world? Based on some of this year’s buzziest films, that question is on the minds of contemporary directors and writers.
From the postpartum loneliness and depression that many mothers face depicted in Lynne Ramsay’s “Die My Love,” the multi-generational fight for meaningful change in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” to the never-ending economic stresses placed on family in Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice,” many of this year’s films take an unflinching look at the anxiety parents — and, in turn, their children — face in today’s increasingly politically volatile world.
I think it’s a fair question to ask, that moves beyond the tiresome banality of constantly having to explain “art is political” and moves into; “just how political is art?”
Beyond the specific catastrophes of the women in Hamnet and If I Had Legs - plague and depression - there’s a lot that their responses to devastations can speak to in the present day, when it comes to families and child-raising in particular;
Eco-anxiety: what it is, how it affects our children, and how parents can support them - Climate change is changing not only our planet, but also our children’s emotions.
Not to mention the most fundamental ways that women’s bodies and personhood are being attacked and eroded across the globe, and the specific cruelties targeting mothers;
The State of Women’s Rights - From the United States to the Democratic Republic of Congo, women and girls’ rights have suffered serious setbacks. Despite the challenges, there also have been improvements and victories. Today, for International Women’s Day, Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division Director Macarena Sáez speaks with Amy Braunschweiger about the best and worst of women’s rights last year, and what Human Rights Watch is focusing on in 2025.
Gaza war leads to 41% fall in births prompting allegations of reproductive violence - Israel’s war in Gaza has caused high numbers of maternal and neonatal deaths, say two reports
And the fascistic and cruel ways that abuse of women and children is built into systems of oppression;
‘Horrific’: report reveals abuse of pregnant women and children at US Ice facilities. Report from senator Jon Ossoff’s office found 510 credible reports of human rights abuses since Trump’s inauguration
Men Are Impersonating ICE to Attack Immigrant Women. MAGA Emboldened Them.
Queer and trans immigrants allege forced labor and sexual assault in Ice facility: ‘I was treated worse than an animal’ - At the South Louisiana Ice Processing Center in Basile, detainees say they were forced into hard labor – and sexually assaulted and stalked by an assistant warden
‘I was only a child’: Greenlandic women tell of trauma of forced contraception - Women say being fitted with IUDs without their consent left them with pain, shame and lasting reproductive difficulties
First Nations women have the largest gender pay gap in Australia, new study reveals
Aboriginal women are scared to seek help for fear their children will be taken, report finds - Human Rights Watch spoke to 33 Aboriginal parents who between them have had 114 children removed and placed in out-of-home care
Given all this, it’d be fair enough if people called out why first-person accounts and fictionalised stories of the above aren’t the ones we see on our silver screens - as opposed to tales of a 16th-century English witch and middle-class Montauk mom.
Fair call.
Hear me Roar
In the immediate I’d say - those women mentioned; from Congo to Gaza, Iran and smuggled away inside ICE Detention Facilities or God-knows-where, first have to survive, before they can tell their stories.
And even if they come out the other side, the ability to tell their truth is going to be considerably hampered by an increasingly monopolised and manipulated media landscape;
Paramount blacklist pro-Palestine voices under new pro-Israel leadership
Media giants accused of ‘cowering to threats’ as Trump tries to stamp out criticism
Javier Bardem Responds To Backlash Against Film Workers For Palestine Pledge
Rush Hour 4 in the works at Paramount after reports of Trump intervening - Brett Ratner, accused of sexual misconduct by several women, will bring his hit franchise back to the big screen
I am reminded of a Noor Hindi poem - Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying - from her collection Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow;
And the Naomi Shihab Nye poem - No Explosions - from her 2019 The Tiny Journalist collection;
A Different Kind of Life
I think that, increasingly, we will have to go seeking out such stories - unable to rely purely on establishments like The Golden Globes or Oscars to deliver us the Mothers we seek. Because these stories do also exist right now. Maybe they’re harder to find, again - because those systems of oppression are at play;
Or because imperfect frameworks make art hard to sit with, but no less necassary and important;
“For me, there is a clear distinction between the propaganda films of the Islamic Republic and the films that are made under the constraints of censorship,” Mohammad Rasoulof said in a statement issued to Variety after coming under fire from IIFMA for congratulating Roustayee on Instagram about getting “Woman and Child” into Cannes.
“The idea that some individuals may seek to block others from participating in international festivals goes against the principles of artistic freedom — and even against basic human rights,” Rasoulof added.
“Such an atmosphere also places immense pressure on Iranian filmmakers who are unable to work outside the official system or beyond censorship,” he continued.
“They are caught between two forces: on one side, the pressure of the censorship apparatus; and on the other, the pressure from those who label any kind of professional activity as betrayal of the people or complicity with the regime — denying others their right to choose their own path. It is clear to me that people have different abilities, capacities, and even circumstances. Not everyone is able to take the risks involved in making underground films,” Rasoulof went on to note.
Iran’s other Cannes Palme d’Or nominee should not be ignored - While Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident took home the top prize at the festival, Saeed Roustaee’s latest may have been just as deserving
Seek, and you shall find …
There is a documentary you maybe have not heard of, called Motherhood in the Colony;
Described as a love letter to mothers and the role they play in the resilience of Indigenous cultures, this month the long anticipated short documentary —Motherhood in the Colony—will premiere on Mother’s Day, Sunday May 11.
Featuring both First Nations and Palestinian women and caregivers, the new documentary reflects their shared histories and experiences.
Through intimate storytelling, the film explores mothering as an act of resistance and unravels stories of colonial trauma, while inviting audiences to listen, learn, and envision a future beyond the oppressive structures of colonisation.
Motherhood in the Colony and its storytellers resist ongoing forces that seek to erase, and invite communities to do the same through an intimate collection of deeply personal stories shared with generosity and care—offered as both testimony and a teaching.
Maybe you’d like to watch the film, or even host a screening - and I will too. The project sounds exactly like what I’m looking for, craving and not always finding in the more mainstream depictions of Motherhood, lately;
Motherhood in the Colony is more than just a storytelling project … it is a tool for truth-telling, education, and healing.
Such a vexed landscape where so many people are trying to manipulate what ‘motherhood’ is or means and an often overlooked consideration that it is far more complex than one defining aspect.
Also, looking for a strong, over-35, woman in tv and film? I loved Alex Kingston in her role as River Song in Dr Who a few years ago. Now, there is a woman who is not letting age pin her down!
I always and comprehensively appreciate your insights, and the careful well-scaffolded analysis, and the vibrant phrasing, but also that you take the time to regularly (& helpfully) also insert linked illustrative articles and media and references, so we can follow-up or confirm or contrast.