YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER
15 ★★★★
Cert
In cinemas and on digital now
Writer-director Kate Dolan injects Irish folklore into the domestic drama in a deeply unsettling indie flick.
Neglected teen Char (an excellent Hazel Doupe) lives on a housing estate in Dublin with her depressed mum Angela (Carolyn Bracken) and her creepy gran Rita (Ingrid Craigie).
After being bumped up a year at school, the gifted but friendless girl is bullied by her older classmates, who taunt her with gossip about the history of mental illness in her family.
When Angela goes missing, the teen seems surprisingly unflustered. But, when she returns a changed woman,
Char wonders whether there’s a medical or supernatural explanation. As Halloween is approaching, we suspect it’s the latter.