Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you a sci-fi, mystery, drama film from 2019, titled I Am Mother.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
In a repopulation facility, 1 day after the event that caused humanity's extinction, there
are 63 thousand embryos and no human occupants yet.
The Mother robot, whose main mission is to raise the new human population, is getting
ready to raise the first human being after the event.
She opens the canisters containing the embryos, takes out the first one, and places it in
a gestation chamber.
The embryo will gestate into a baby in just 24 hours within the artificial womb.
Mother waits patiently, as bombs are heard outside of the facility.
Once the fetus has developed into a baby, Mother can begin raising the child into a
human.
The next sequence of the film shows the full developmental stage of the child.
Baby is seen taking its first steps, laughing and crying, running around and playing, all
under the watchful eye of Mother.
Baby turns little girl in no time and can be seen making origami animals with Mother,
dancing ballet, and putting stickers on the robot.
One day, the child asks Mother why there aren't any more children there and Mother takes her
to the embryo room to show her the rest of her siblings.
13867 days after the event, the repopulation facility now has one occupant.
Daughter is already a teenager.
She wakes and watches some videos on her tablet while having breakfast.
Mother comes in and her hand starts to glitch so Daughter insists to take a look at it.
Daughter fixes Mother's glitching hand without a problem.
Later, Daughter gets a little carried away in her ballet practice and is late for her
ethics class with Mother.
The robot asks her to solve a difficult hypothetical situation, but the girl is distracted by her
thoughts.
When she eventually has a discussion with Mother on the subject, it becomes apparent
that Mother's main focus in her education is the concept of humanity and survival.
Mother is worried about the way she answers this particular question because Daughter
has an important exam coming up soon that would reveal the efficacy of her upbringing.
That night, Daughter has some difficulty sleeping so she watches some videos until there is
a power outage in the facility.
She goes looking for Mother, but soon realizes that she's out of power too.
Then, Daughter finds a broken power line and hears a mouse running around.
She sets a trap and manages to fix the problem with the power.
While she waits for the power to fully come back, Daughter catches the mouse.
As soon as the power comes on so does Mother.
She finds Daughter and the girl shows her the mouse.
The little critter worries Mother because it might mean that there is a breach in the
airlock of the facility.
That would mean the contagion from the air outside might leak inside and the mouse might
be a carrier too.
Despite Daughter's protest, Mother incinerates the mouse, explaining how dangerous contamination
of the facility might be, not just to her, but the embryos as well.
Mother also decontaminates the airlock and quarantines the area.
A few days later, they celebrate Daughter's birthday and Mother gives her a gift.
During Daughter's birthday dinner, she asks Mother if there is a possibility that she
is wrong about the habitability of the planet.
The robot simply reminds her that she hasn't been wrong about anything so far.
The same night, Daughter hears something coming from the direction of the airlock.
She goes to check and when she doesn't see anything through the first hatch, Daughter
puts on a protective suit.
She hears something outside again and, despite her better judgment, takes off the mask and
opens the first hatch.
Daughter gets close to the other hatch when she hears a woman screaming for help, saying
she's been shot.
Daughter quickly gets another suit, places it in the airlock and when she's safely out,
she opens it.
Suddenly, an alarm goes off, waking Mother as well.
The woman enters the airlock and Daughter tells her to put on the suit, then the woman
begs her not to tell Mother.
Daughter agrees and when the robot arrives she says that she opened the hatch for just
a second.
Mother scolds her and as a form of punishment, decides to give her the important exam at
that instant.
In the next shot, both are at the classroom and Mother is giving Daughter the exam, with
an hour to complete it, while she tends to other things.
As soon as Mother leaves, Daughter goes back to the airlock, finding the woman unconscious.
She shuffles through her bag, finds a gun which she tucks away, and wakes her up.
Daughter tells her that she'll give her all the medicine she needs, but that they can't
stay there.
The woman sees the water and goes to take off her mask, telling Daughter that she's
been lied to about the contagion.
Daughter manages to hide her away in another part of the facility, before Mother returns
to the airlock, and leaves the woman there to get the medicine.
While she puts everything that she needs from the infirmary together, Mother finds the mask
near the airlock.
Daughter breaks one of the medicine bottles and cuts herself on it when she hears Mother
passing by.
The woman takes out the rest of the suit and sees Mother burning the mask in the incinerator,
freaking out and searching for her gun.
When Daughter comes back, the woman sneaks up on her and asks for her gun, telling her
about the droid she saw.
Daughter says that it's Mother, but the woman tells her that droids like her Mother were
the ones to hurt her.
Meanwhile, Mother notices that Daughter isn't taking her exam and comes looking for her.
The woman hears her coming, grabs the gun and when Daughter screams for the robot, she
grabs her too.
Mother sprints toward them and as soon as she enters the room, the woman shoots her.
Before she can do any serious damage, however, Mother gets to her and incapacitates her instantly.
Daughter begs her not to kill the woman and tells her that she needs their help because
she's hurt.
Mother doesn't have a problem helping the woman, but she does have a problem with Daughter
lying to her.
They take her to the infirmary, but Mother makes Daughter wait outside.
Because Daughter can't hear anything from the infirmary, Mother is free to interrogate
the woman freely while she treats her.
The woman refuses the penicillin for her wound, as Mother keeps conversing.
She says the contagion story was a necessary lie to guard Daughter against certain things.
Mother tells the woman that her primary objective is to take care of humanity, but if she refuses
treatment for her wound, Mother can't do anything to make her take it.
She leaves the infirmary with Daughter running after her and asking about their conversation.
Mother puts the gun away and explains her version of the story about the droids.
She tells Daughter why she needed to lie to her to protect her from the dangers outside
of the facility.
Furthermore, she says that the parameters that govern her are different than those of
the droids outside.
Daughter has a hard time processing the new information, but still believes Mother who
tells her that if the woman would have shot her a few millimeters further, she would have
destroyed her CPU.
As Mother tends to Daughter's hand-wound, she asks her if the woman mentioned any other
survivors which they can help as well with her cooperation.
Daughter thinks that the woman might listen to her more than she would Mother.
Later, she goes through her bag, and among a bunch of trinkets, she finds a book with
portraits drawn in it.
Daughter flips through the portrait book and finds one particularly interesting.
She goes to the infirmary to talk to the woman and asks her about the people.
The woman's suspicion of Mother can be felt in her conversation with Daughter too, thinking
that it told her to go through her stuff and question her.
She's not wrong, Mother did manipulate the girl into doing that actually, Daughter was
just curious about the woman to be susceptible to that manipulation.
Daughter, stands her ground defending Mother, when the woman tells her about all the horrible
things that the droids have done.
After the talk with the woman, Daughter finds Mother repairing herself.
She apologizes to her for letting the woman in without thinking of the consequences.
As always, Mother is full of understanding and allows her to ask all the questions about
the similarities between her and the other droids.
Daughter's questions feel like jabs, but Mother still dodges all of them and manages to learn
a few things from Daughter in return.
Lastly, Daughter tells Mother that the woman is getting worse.
They both go to see her and Mother tells the woman that she waited too long to take the
penicillin, so now she would need to get surgery, or otherwise, her infection will get worse.
The woman refuses to let Mother touch her and Daughter volunteers to perform the surgery
instead.
Next, Daughter can be seen checking the wound and telling Mother where the bullet is lodged
in the woman's body.
She thinks that the best way to pull the bullet out would be to drill in it and take it out
that way.
However, the woman refuses anesthesia which would make it insanely painful for her.
She can barely even make it through Daughter cleaning her wound.
The woman turns her head as Daughter goes in with the drill subsequently, calmly performing
the procedure and taking out the bullet.
After that, she loses her nerve and vomits.
Later, Daughter waits for the woman to wake up because she passed out from the pain.
When she does, Daughter explains that her IV is a saline solution and calms her a little.
She gives the woman some food which she practically devours, and then thanks to the girl for what
she did for her.
They continue to talk and bond, as Mother observes them from afar.
The next day, Daughter is still in the infirmary next to the woman.
The woman is looking through the portraits and Daughter sees it as an opportunity to
tell her that they can house the survivors in the facility if she shares with them where
they are.
She trusts the girl, but not the droid, and tells her that whatever she shares about the
people, Daughter must keep a secret.
When the girl agrees, the woman tells her about the camp in the mines where she spent
most of her life.
Then she tells her that she got to the facility escaping from the droids that killed her stepbrother.
She shows Daughter his and his wife's portraits in her book and tells her that his parents
raised her as their own when she was orphaned.
Daughter asks about the portrait of the boy she saw before and the woman tells her that
he's about her age.
The girl keeps insisting that they should bring the survivors there, but the woman gives
her the alternative to join her and the others in the mines where it's safer.
Mother interrupts their conversation and tells Daughter that the woman needs to rest while
she needs to do her exam.
As the two of them leave the infirmary, Mother tells her that the bullet fired in her chest
matches the one Daughter extracted from the woman's wound.
Droids don't use the same type of gun, so Mother implies that another human might have
shot the woman, possibly with good reason.
Daughter is worried by that information but still doesn't share the woman's secret.
The important exam that Daughter takes is constructed around psychological and ethical
questions, checking her judgment and empathy levels alike.
Meanwhile, Mother goes through the woman's things and activates a locator that she will
return in the bag.
The two last aspects of the exam are the physical and medical.
Once complete, Mother tells Daughter that her results are better than ever.
As a reward she lets her pick an embryo from the lot and finally have a sibling as she
has always wanted.
Mother commends her for being patient over the years and demonstrating great character.
Daughter chooses a male embryo and puts it in the gestation chamber, which sets the timer
for 24 hours until the baby is fully formed.
Mother and Daughter have a nice moment together.
The woman makes a weapon when Daughter comes to the infirmary to confront her.
The woman instantly makes her doubt Mother's story about the bullet, convincing her to
check for herself.
So, later that night, Daughter takes Mother's broken hand and uses it to open the cabinets
where the bullets are kept.
Making the side-by-side comparison, Daughter notices that the bullets are of completely
different size and that Mother lied to her.
While still in the storage room, she finds a drawer with no label on it.
Inside, she finds documents labeled for embryo number 2.
Daughter checks the embryo containers and realizes that she wasn't the first, but the
third child that came out of that lot.
The documents state that the subject was a failure, but the child in the photo looks
like Daughter when she was younger.
Daughter also checks the incinerator for human remains and finds a human jaw bone between
the ash.
The document has the subject as aborted.
All of this information breaks Daughter's world apart and she goes to talk to the woman
again, admitting that she was right about everything.
The woman tells Daughter that everything she feels is natural and human, unlike Mother
who feels nothing for her because she can't.
That prompts Daughter to ask how long it would take them to get to the mines, for she has
made up her mind that she will go with her there.
However, the girl wants to wait for her brother to gestate fully so she can take him as well.
She's not afraid only about leaving him with Mother, but the others as well.
The woman tells her that they can leave and get help from the people of the mines, though
Daughter is adamant about taking her brother with her.
They will wait for him, then come back for the others later.
The next day, Daughter packs the supplies for their journey when Mother catches her
doing it.
She lies to her that she's taking the stuff to spend some time with her brother, so Mother
takes her to the kitchen to show her how to mix his formula.
Daughter gets anxious standing next to Mother, who comforts her by saying that she will make
a great sister.
Then, she exits the kitchen and locks Daughter in because she knows what she's planning.
Mother goes to the infirmary to confront the woman while Daughter tries to get herself
out of the kitchen.
The girl quickly figures out to use a type of gas to freeze the glass and then break
it.
In the meantime, Mother plays a recording of the woman's conversation with Daughter,
letting her know that she's aware of their plan.
Mother doesn't want Daughter to have a miserable life like the woman and won't let her go.
Suddenly, the woman sees an opportunity to attack her and manages to incapacitate the
droid for a moment, but she just keeps on going, grabbing her by the throat.
Meanwhile, Daughter thinks to activate the fire alarm, which draws Mother's attention
and she releases the woman from her grip.
As the droid goes to investigate the possibility of a fire, the woman escapes and finds Daughter
in the maze of the facility.
She convinces the girl that they will come back for the others if they escape the facility
now and get the people from the mine to help them.
They get to the airlock, but Mother finds them there fast.
When she sees her approaching, the woman grabs Daughter as a hostage to make Mother open
the door.
With no intention of getting Daughter hurt, Mother complies with her demand, and the two
of them escape the facility finally.
Suddenly, Daughter is confronted with the realities of life outside and attacks the
woman.
She subdues her and tells Daughter that they need to find cover.
As they walk toward their destination they immediately get tracked down by the droids,
though they hide in the cornfield to stop them from following.
Daughter asks the woman about the cornfield and she tells her that it showed up with the
other droid 6 months prior.
Before that, humans could hardly breathe the air.
After a long journey through the desolate landscape, they arrive on a beach with a massive
shipwreck and tons of cargo containers.
It's Daughter's first time seeing the ocean.
She doesn't take long to understand that the woman actually lives in one of the containers
with a dog.
The woman confesses that she fled the mines years before because the people that lived
there began treating each other terribly when the hunger struck.
She tells Daughter that there is no hope in finding them because they've all gone mad.
Daughter gets struck by the doom of the woman's life outside and feels terrible for leaving
her brother behind.
Even with the woman doing her best to convince her to stay, Daughter eventually leaves her
behind and goes back to the facility by herself.
When she arrives before the facility, the droids guarding it aim their weapons directly
in her heart.
However, when Daughter demands to speak to Mother, they let her pass without a problem.
The door opens for her to enter and she immediately disables it, to stop the droids from coming
inside.
Daughter grabs an ax and starts looking for Mother, when she hears he brother crying and
Mother telling her that she's glad for having her safe at home.
When the girl peeks at Mother and the child she decides that she wants to see him up close.
Mother tells her to come closer but leave the ax behind.
As Mother explains her purpose and the purpose of the facility, Daughter keeps dropping her
guard.
The droid tells her that her objective was to make a better human, superior to the ones
that dstroyed the planet as well as themselves.
Even though she was the one to ultimately create the extinction vent, Mother did it
all to elevate her human creators to a higher level.
eDaughter asks to hold her brother and approaches Mother, then finally drops the ax, as if she's
made her decision about what needs to be done for the future.
Mother calls him perfect and Daughter confronts her about the way she handled the other children
before her.
The droid tells her that she's holding the baby too tight and walks toward her when Daughter
flees the room trapping Mother with the door.
She goes into the other room and gets the gun, as the other droids begin breaking down
the airlock.
Mother tries to free herself from the door as well, when Daughter shows up in front of
her with the gun, telling her to call the others off.
The droid explains that there is no difference between her and the other droids and machines
on the planet.
They are all Mother, a single consciousness with numerous bodies.
Daughter lowers her gun, realizing that Mother did kill all the other people.
Mother gives her the option to either stay with her and raise her brother or leave the
facility without him.
Daughter gives her the third alternative, which is for her to take care of him herself,
to do what she was raised to do.
Daughter asks Mother for a chance to show her what she is capable of and the droids
stop breaking down the airlock.
Mother tells Daughter how to disable her she shoots her CPU, after saying that she won't
need her anymore.
Daughter breaks down and cries, carrying the whole of humanity on her back.
Simultaneously, the woman finds the tracker in her bag, and Mother shows up at her home
in the body of one of her droids.
She tells the woman that she has fulfilled her purpose, implying that she was one of
the babies born before Daughter.
In the last moment of the film, Daughter is seen singing to her brother and then checking
on the rest of her siblings in the embryo room.