The films nominated across categories in the 2022 edition of the Academy Awards span Westerns and sepia-toned narratives to heartwarmingly contemporary and alarmingly futuristic stories. While little unites them apart from their Oscar nominations, this year, several of the films have touched upon a very universal idea but in their own, inimitable ways: Motherhood.
A concept that transcends languages and cultures, motherhood is present in all its glory with much honesty. Combining the terrifying and the gratifying parts, we get to see happy mothers, ranting mothers, supportive mothers, sacrificing mothers, selfish mothers… what have you!
Of the 10 Best Picture nominations, Belfast, CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, King Richard, and The Power of the Dog each touch upon motherhood in varying hues; sometimes even challenging the glorified notion people have of it. Let us take the highly popular but questionable inclusion in this category — Don’t Look Up.
The film has an ensemble cast of A-listers who make this a very entertaining apocalyptic comedy. In the galaxy of stars is thespian Meryl Streep, who plays Janie Orlean, the US president, a greedy, apathetic, and uber capitalist who is overambitious and self-serving, even at the cost of her son and Chief of Staff Jason Orlean [played by Jonah Hill]. Of course, it is all in good humour as it takes an actress of Streep’s calibre to balance the satire in the role with the real-life relatability of it.
Belfast and The Power of the Dog both have supportive mothers who allow their sons to be true to themselves. CaitrÃona Balfe and Kirsten Dunst combine their nurturing nature with the difficulties of moulding their children, and come out with varying success.
Balfe particularly is en pointe when she drags her son and Belfast protagonist Buddy out of a supermarket looting incident with rebels, reprimanding him for participating in such an activity. It is such a mom thing to do, right? Rioters are shattering glass and looting items from a shop, but she is enraged [and not momentarily fearful for their safety] that nine-year-old Buddy would do such a thing.
Spousal equations are all about knowing when to take the lead, when to be firmly in the background and when to give the perception of being the support act while quietly taking charge. King Richard is undoubtedly about Richard Williams and his plan for success that charted the incredible journeys of Venus and Serena Williams. But Richard [Will Smith] was also so consumed by the handpicked Venus that managing Serena’s dejection fell on Brandi. The powerhouse mother [Aunjanue Ellis] decided to hone the skills of a forlorn Serena, not letting her lose focus or interest in the face of rejection. While this is Richard’s story, Ellis as Brandi is the kind of mother we see ever so often — working surely but quietly in the sidelines.
There is nothing quiet about the Rossi household in CODA, even with three out of four deaf members. The relationship between a deaf mother and teenaged hearing daughter is peak adolescence management replete with eye-rolling and door-slamming. Ruby Rossi [Emilia Jones] wants to be a singer while her deaf parents and brother run a small fishing business that she helps with. Her parents share a great dynamic with her even as her mother [Marlee Matlin] gets on her nerves in precisely the same way we would have all experienced at some point.
They override our need for space, they guilt us into submission, they force us to the point of exasperation, and they also silently realise that they ought to right a wrong. Mothers. That scene in which she admits to Ruby that she wished she was deaf too so that they would have a stronger bond is both raw and uncharacteristically candid.
Not every mother bursts with excitement about the idea of parenting. Ask Olivia Colman’s Leda Caruso in The Lost Daughter who says with a smile, “Children are a crushing responsibility. Happy birthday!” Colman [nominated for Best Actress] and Jessie Buckley [who plays the younger Leda, nominated for Best Supporting Actress] together do a phenomenal job of showing the madness of motherhood while trying to juggle a career.
For a change, a working mother is not shown as some vamp of selfishness; instead, we see how hard it actually is to get a moment’s silence, how infuriating life feels when we love our jobs yet have to fit society’s expectation of being the primary caregiver, and how lovelessly isolating the entire experience can be.
Let us face it: there are very many days when the love of a child is not enough to get us through the insanity of parenthood, driving us to make choices we may not always like.
Even in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Jessica Chastain [playing the eponymous character] is definitely the talent part of the Faye-Baker couple. She feels the artistic angst of wanting to get back to her passion of being on screen but is frequently sidelined after her delivery in the garb of reminding her of her maternal duties.
Oto in Drive My Car, we find out, loses her child and compensates for that loss by feeding her sexual desires. Watari, the driver who resents her mother, struggles to forgive her for the abuse she was subjected to while the latter grappled with mental disorders.
Pedro Almodovar’s film literally parallels the experience of a young mother and a middle-aged one in the film Madres Paralelas [Parallel Mothers]. Starring Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit, two mothers who get pregnant by accident, meet in a maternity ward. Fate gets them to confront each other again as they navigate the early days of childbirth while also grappling with some dubious developments. Cruz and Smit recreate the anguish and nervousness of single parenting superlatively, showing us how those neonatal days of physical fatigue and emotional depletion are not without a heady dose of mental disquietude.
Diana, Princess of Wales [played by Kristen Stewart] in Spencer, has all the fatigue, disquietude, and emotional draining in the world but none of it comes from her children. Instead, she is the fun mother who teaches her to break rules yet is so lonely that she problematically relies on her teenaged son to keep her from coming apart in a failed marriage.
Even the films nominated in the Animated Feature category like Encanto have strong matriarchs whose belief in tough love drives their children to make choices that do not toe the family line. Mirabel, the only direct bloodline Madrigal family member without magical powers, attempts to save the magic of their family home and clashes with her grandmother in the process. In the healing that relationship lies the solution to restoring the magic and the Madrigal family honour.
The films nominated across categories are united in their attempt to showcase motherhood without the romanticism; where caregiving and a career jostle for space, where love and loneliness are not too far away and where the unconditional is often rather untidy.
Oscars 2022 will take place on 28 March.
Senior journalist Lakshmi Govindrajan Javeri has spent a good part of two decades chronicling the arts, culture and lifestyles.
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