Materna (film)

• Jade Eshete as Mona
• Assol Abdullina as Perizad
• Kate Lyn Sheil as Jean
• Lindsay Burdge as Ruth
• Michael Chernus as David
• Rory Culkin as Gabe
• Cassandra Freeman as Wanda
• Sturgill Simpson as Paul
• Kaili Vernoff as Jean's Mom
• Jake Katzman as Jared
• Kara Young as Kara
• Zhamilya Sydykbaeva as Fatima
• Jamal Seidakmatova as Aisha

The film was released on VOD and on digital platforms on 10 August 2021.[1]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Materna holds an approval rating of 71%, based on 17 reviews.[2]

Beatrice Loayza of The New York Times wrote that while each section "leaves its mark", the "glue uniting these women of different ethnicities and backgrounds reads like a failed attempt to carve a more ambitious meaning out of individual stories already brimming with possibility."[3]

Nick Schager of Variety wrote that while the film "wisely doesn’t try to neatly resolve its multifaceted tensions", and the performances are "attuned to the material’s fundamental air of incompleteness and instability" the "forlorn and minimalist tone struck throughout proves too uniform, thanks in part to cinematography that — in each segment — segues similarly between intense close-ups and remote compositions in which figures are spied in dark, empty spaces or constricting doorways."[4]

Jourdain Searles of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "thought-provoking", despite writing that Eshete's character "would have benefited from more screen time" and that Burdge's character is "by far the least developed."[5]

Tomris Laffly of RogerEbert.com rated the film 2 stars out of 4 and called the film "less an Alejandro Iñárritu-style collection of interwoven connections, and more something that feels way too happenstantial", writing that what it "tries to say on race, class, culture, and society remains all too vague and surface-level in the aftermath."[6]

• Materna at IMDb
• Materna at Rotten Tomatoes