Ma (2019)★★★★☆

This is a weird little movie with a lot of surprising familiar faces. Octavia Spencer obviously, but also Allison Janney AND Missi Pyle AND Juliette Lewis (who, by the way, is also in Yellowjackets)!

(Maybe spoilers ahead?) And let’s talk Octavia Spencer, by the way. I know she’s been in a lot of serious roles, but my personal favorite Octavia Spencer roles are the ones where she’s slightly (to extremely) deranged or unhinged.

She has a lot of single-episode appearances in some prime 90s sitcoms like Dharma and Greg, Malcolm in the Middle, and Becker that I enjoyed, and I particularly enjoyed her 4-episode arc in Ugly Betty (honestly, that character could be Sue Ann herself!). And her several appearances as a fictionalized version of herself are fun.

And it was CLEAR she had fun with this role, which made it fun to watch. I enjoyed Eric Eisenberg’s CinemaBlend interview with Tate Taylor (the director), which confirms not only that Octavia Spencer had fun with this role, but that a lot of this role was rewritten specifically for her. (I particularly appreciated learning that Tate Taylor made this because he wanted “to do something fucked up” - I think he succeeded.)

Overall this movie is pretty graphic, and there are some over-the-top silly moments, but it’s also pretty tense, has some scary moments, and everyone is good in it.