No, that isn’t a typo. This isn’t a biopic about the woman who played The Bride in the Kill Bill movies. It’s a disappointing horror film about a Korean mother from hell.
Sandra Oh plays her still traumatized daughter, a single mom so freaked out about her past, not only has she changed her name, she refuses to have the power turned on in her own farmhouse. Rare visitors, like her friendly business partner Dermot Mulroney (who’s starting to resemble a modern-day Mel Gibson), have to park their vehicles at a safe distance and turn off their cell phones before they’re even allowed to approach her.
Along with her cute, sweet, fiercely loyal teenage daughter Chris (a breakthrough performance by Fivel Stewart who resembles a young Olivia Munn), they run their own beekeeping operation. Business is booming thanks to an online influencer who raves about their freshly produced honey. Their stuff always sells out. Mulroney looks after the endless orders while also attending to his own business selling Oh the very supplies she’ll need for her growing operation.
Everything in her life is too positive which means she’s about to be reminded that you can’t escape your problems forever. Out of nowhere, Oh’s irritated uncle arrives to inform his relieved niece that her umma died some time ago. (Oh was hoping never to be found by her estranged family which is why she’s belatedly informed of this.)
But then he lays on the guilt trip to end all guilt trips. Umma was pissed she wasn’t there in her final hours as she called out her name. Bad, disobedient daughter! He’s brought a suitcase filled with her most treasured belongings and her ashes in a giant-ass urn. Her spirit won’t be at peace until she’s given a proper send-off. That’s when the routine hauntings begin.
Like the power in her own home, Oh has been trying to shut this part of her life off for good. But it keeps coming back forcing her to reckon with a situation that brings back terrible memories. Unfortunately, her daughter knows nothing of this but inevitably when she does learn the truth, she isn’t thrilled. Oh is so terrified of her umma she didn’t even teach her daughter how to speak Korean.
I have a lot of problems with Oh’s overreactions to her troubled history. Once we realize why she has this strong aversion to electricity, we wonder why her fear isn’t just restricted to lamps with broken wires. And if she’s so worried about becoming her mother, why is she just as clingy with her own daughter? Why is she also so reluctant to let her be independent?
Poor Chris has to endure snickering from the uncredited kids outside Mulroney’s store partly because she hasn’t been to school in years (does she have social anxiety?) and were it not for Mulroney’s visiting niece she wouldn’t have any friends at all. Like Oh, she wants to move on already. But an application for university admission causes a rift. History will repeat itself.
I’m not the only one to acknowledge the potential of this story, how it’s nice to see Asian Americans as lead characters for a change, especially women who are far too often disposable playthings in horror. Oh and Stewart are absolutely convincing as mother and daughter despite looking nothing alike. Those little intimate moments like the times Stewart gently lays her head on Oh’s shoulder are endearing. We like these women.
The problem is the umma. She isn’t scary. In fact, she’s rather one-dimensional. It takes a while for Oh to open up but once she does, something’s amiss. Why would a miserable matriarch, someone who had a career in her home country, take out her fears and frustrations on the one person mostly likely to be her strongest ally?
And what’s the deal with all the missing fathers? Having failed as a powerless child to escape her angry mama for years, Oh gets pregnant by a mystery man but where is he? Who is he? For a time, I wondered if it was Mulroney but no. He’s just really concerned even to the point of trying and ultimately failing to get her therapy for her power phobia. He’s the one who supplies Chris with that uni application.
As for Oh’s own father, why did he leave on his own? Why didn’t he take his tortured daughter with him? It all goes unmentioned.
I like the idea of a movie about dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships that doesn’t devolve into outrageous camp, how the elder’s inability to forge bonds with women in her own peer group makes her deeply insecure about losing the only person who truly loves her. The tighter the grip, however, the stronger the resentment.
As Oh continues to avoid dealing with her uncomfortable past, her umma will not be denied. And that’s when things get rather absurd like the scene where Oh is led outside and she witnesses an innocent baby chick get stomped on like Godzilla. Or a later scene where she’s literally dragged into the ground for a final confrontation which leads to the end of this ongoing misunderstanding. A true petering out if there ever was one.
Umma is one of those films where if people simply communicated how they actually felt, empathy would flourish and help would arrive much sooner. But instead, these stubborn moms keep their misery to themselves until it can no longer be contained. Rather than accepting responsibility for making bad choices (the domineering umma could’ve easily said no to a move to America) blaming their innocent offspring for their simmering dilemmas conveniently transfers their guilt.
When Oh explains why she doesn’t want her daughter to go away to university, we are reminded that guilt trips are multi-generational. We pass on the hurt to absolve ourselves of our own abuse. But that only compounds it and spreads it like a cancer. One of the reasons I like Chris more than any other character in Umma is that she’s not at all timid about expressing her own rage. Both women slap each other at one point during one of their big fights. However, Chris won’t back down. Despite all the things Oh did wrong while raising her, there’s still hope for a more liberating future.
Umma has a tight running time (under 85 minutes) but it moves too slowly. The flashback torture scenes are weak. Perhaps they should’ve been more explicit than merely hinted. The presence of the unwelcome umma in Oh’s farmhouse doesn’t inspire much dread or loathing. One wonders if the film would’ve worked better as a straight drama than a ghost story.
And what is going on in that final shot? Don’t tell me they were hoping for a sequel. Just let this go already.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, August 12, 2022
2:48 a.m.
THE WRITINGS OF DENNIS EARL 