Hey Ma, What's Up?

Been gone for a minute but I’m back with the jump off. 

Hey guys! I know it’s been a little while- I was out here traveling the world and spreading this black girl magic across Caribbean islands. But you know I couldn’t stay away from my love of horror! As soon as I came back I headed to the theaters to see Ma. It was interesting. Let’s discuss.

Ma tells the story of Maggie and her friends, high school kids who need to find an adult to buy them alcohol. That’s where Ma (played brilliantly by Octavia Spencer. She is a beast!) comes in. She is nice enough to buy the kids liquor AND give them a safe space to drink so they don’t run around town drinking and driving. What follows next is pure crazy. Ma becomes a super stalker, adding all of the kids on social media and popping up at school with a case of liquor. Her house becomes the party house for all of the kids and when Maggie and her friends start to get creeped out by Ma and want to keep their distance her crazy goes into overdrive.

I think my main issue with this movie is all of the different plot twists that the writers tried to add. It was like playing connect the dots. First, we realize that Maggie and her boyfriend’s parents went to school with Ma. They were involved in some horrible prank that scarred Ma forever. We also learn that a girl we see for literally 5 seconds at the beginning of the movie is Ma’s daughter that she keeps locked away in the house because Ma has Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. Like, why? What does that have to do with her being teased in high school?

There is also minor character development with Maggie and her mom. You enjoy their relationship and you know that they have moved back home due to her mom’s divorce but that’s about it. Ma explores so many topics and character plot points but then kind of lets them fall flat.

Something that I found interesting was the way they wanted to touch on racism but never completely made it all the way there. Ma holds a gun early on in the movie and makes a joke saying, “What y’all think I’m Madea?” I found that extra funny just because the point being made is that Madea is such a stereotypical black character. But don’t get me started on my Tyler Perry and black stereotype tangent. We would be here all day. Also, at the end of the movie, Ma paints the only black kid’s face white. She even says, ‘There is only room for one of us.” I feel like if there was going to be so many racial undertones in the movie then it should have been explored a little deeper. Instead, the jokes and odd comments felt uncomfortable and out of place.

I did enjoy Ma. The word I keep using when people ask how I feel is “interesting.” The storyline was interesting. It reminded you of different movies you have seen before like Carrie and Misery… but then had its own personal twist. Octavia Spencer truly saved the movie because of how WELL she played crazy. If it wasn’t for her I would have probably hated the movie but she really kept the movie exciting. The ending was also so strange. She lets everyone escape just to go upstairs, lay in bed, and die in the fire? Weird. Just weird. So like I said, the movie was interesting. Just…interesting.