Director and co-writer Miles Joris-Peyrafitte's The Good Mother adds to the burgeoning subgenre of thrillers set against the backdrop of the opioid crisis. Unlike recent TV series like Netflix's Painkiller and Hulu's Dopesick, The Good Mother doesn't take a wide view of the crisis. There are no scenes set at pharmaceutical companies or in their boardrooms. Instead, the occasional flashes of social commentary are secondary to the central narrative about a grieving woman determined to achieve justice for her murdered son. As such, the well-produced The Good Mother is often awkwardly positioned between character-driven drama and crime thriller. It boasts a strong execution of both genres that ultimately can't quite fit together to elevate itself.
Hilary Swank plays The Good Mother's title character, newspaper reporter Marissa Bennings. Marissa has already endured multiple family tragedies by the time the film begins. Her husband has died, and her son Michael (co-writer Madison Harrison) has seemingly been lost to addiction. She endures yet another tragedy when her other son, Toby (Jack Reynor), a police officer, informs her that Michael has been killed in what appears to be a drug deal gone bad. Marissa is angry at Michael and angry at his girlfriend Paige (Olivia Cooke), whom she blames for enabling Michael's drug habit. But when she learns Paige is pregnant, Marissa decides to channel that anger into something more productive.
Swank and Cooke have a strong dynamic in the film. They play two driven women who are wary of each other but united in their grief for the same man. Marissa's first response to seeing Paige at Michael's funeral is to slap her, which she regrets only after she sees that Paige is pregnant. The Good Mother doesn't lean too hard on the potentially sappy storyline of the women learning to care about each other. Instead, they remain focused on finding out what happened to Michael even as Marissa invites Paige into her home and helps her with prenatal care.
Although Paige is an unemployed recovering drug addict, she's not the only one with problems. During the film, Marissa lapses back into heavy drinking as a way to cope with her grief. The stoic and gruff Toby supports his mother but remains wary of Paige. He asserts his position as a cop to handle any criminal activities that arise in their investigation. The Good Mother delves into the prickly family dynamic that also includes Toby's wife, Gina (Dilone), who's been struggling to get pregnant. The result is a mostly rewarding domestic drama in its first half.
Even if the subject matter is familiar, Joris-Peyrafitte handles it gracefully. The director gets powerful performances from his three lead actors. The Good Mother takes a turn into more explicit thriller territory as the investigation into Michael's death heats up. Joris-Peyrafitte delivers some well-crafted suspense, especially during a creatively shot tussle between two characters on a staircase. A sequence of Marissa tracking Michael's former associate Ducky (Hopper Penn) through a darkened train yard -- as different colored lights flash and illuminate her face -- is perfectly evocative and melancholy while also sustaining tension.
The plot twists aren't exactly shocking. More than anything, they mostly distract from the rewarding family drama rather than enhancing it. Still, Joris-Peyrafitte takes care to ground each new development in the existing relationships, examining how violent acts affect the characters' emotional bonds with the right level of sensitivity. It's disappointing that the connection between Marissa and Paige falls away in The Good Mother's third act. But as the title implies, the central theme is about Marissa's troubled relationships with her two sons.
Joris-Peyrafitte pulled off a similar balance of character study and thriller plotting in his excellent, underrated 2019 film Dreamland starring Barbie's Margot Robbie. While Swank isn't as mesmerizing as Robbie was in that film, she still holds The Good Mother together with a tough, layered performance. She's not afraid to make Marissa weak or unpleasant, but she never loses empathy for a woman who has lost so much and is just trying to hold onto what's left. Marissa intermittently narrates The Good Mother in excerpts from her newspaper articles, adding a level of self-reflection to the stock narrative elements.
The Good Mother's greatest asset is Joris-Peyrafitte's ability to elevate those stock elements. With his striking visual style and his compassionate approach to portraying downtrodden characters, the film finds moments of excellence. There are tons of comparable small-scale crime dramas released nearly every month, using current issues as shorthand for underwhelming genre stories. The Good Mother stands above those other movies without having to lecture the audience about modern social problems. While it can't quite find the perfect blend of its inherent genres, the film proves to be a solid drama and a solid thriller. It achieves deeper resonance in the moments when those two approaches properly align but remains compelling throughout.
The Good Mother opens Friday, September 1, in select theaters.