Warning: This post contains spoilers for Ma, starring Octavia Spencer. Don’t know what Ma is? Check this trailer, run to the movie theater, and then come back to this post. But before you do, here’s a poll:
Look insane? I know. In case you didn’t get the premise from that trailer, Maggie (Diana Silvers) is forced to move back to her mom Erica’s (Juliette Lewis) bleak hometown from California and she’s...less than thrilled. But she soon fills the void of ultimate boredom with a new group of friends and a boy (there’s always a boy) who spend their time smoking weed in a van and trying to convince grown-ass adults to procure them alcohol.
One such adult is veterinary assistant Sue Ann (Octavia Spencer), who not only purchases the booze for them but also provides a “safe” (at least from police) place for them to party. Some rules: Call her Ma, stay in the basement (the rest of Ma’s house is strictly off-limits), and don’t you dare ignore her when she sends you messages on Snapchat. Of course, things don’t stay copacetic for long.
A lot of crazy shit goes down (we’ll get to all that), but I ended up with more questions than answers. Here’s what I still need to know after watching Ma.
Why didn’t Maggie’s friends listen to her?
For the first time in a long while, I didn’t find the teen protagonist of a thriller unbearably stupid. Once Maggie feels even slightly uncomfortable—and notices that her precious earrings have gone missing—she decides to stop going to Ma’s place. In fact, she wrangles her new friend Hayley (McKaley Miller) to warn everyone to stop associating with this psycho.
Unfortunately, after Ma feeds the kids some sad tale about having cancer, Maggie’s boyfriend, Andy (Corey Fogelmanis), is almost immediately back at the basement to party. Look, I get it. His mom died of cancer and he feels a connection to Ma. But why did Hayley and co. return? Hayley lost jewelry as well and didn’t buy the cancer tale either. So why in the world would she go back there?!
Why do boyfriends ruin everything?
Thankfully, Maggie is still smart throughout the film, even doing the unthinkable—telling her mom what’s going on. *Gasp*! You very rarely see that in a movie like this (or *ahem* Riverdale).
Unfortunately for Maggie, Andy is dumb as a bag of rocks and very easily manipulated. When she sees him partying at Ma’s on social media, she kind of has no choice but to go after him. Think about it: Her mom is away at work and the police are probably scarier to teens breaking the law then a creepy middle-age woman.
In short: Andy is the reason Maggie ends up chained up in Ma’s house in the first place, and I don’t know what she sees in him.
Speaking of Andy, why did they have to do Luke Evans like that?
Okay, I know why Ma wanted revenge on Andy’s father, Ben (Luke Evans), and the rest of the popular parents she went to high school with. He was a psychopathic jerk.
If you need a recap: Ben and the popular girls (not including Erica) tricked Sue Ann into giving a random guy a blow job, who she thought was Ben. When she stepped out of the janitor’s closet, she realized she was hooking up with a stranger when Ben and co. were waiting outside to laugh at her. Terrible.
But here’s the thing. I kind of feel like adult Ben was a good dad? A little harsh, maybe, but he cared enough to want to know what his son was doing, didn’t want him out drinking (which I’m sure he did a lot as a kid), and threatened Sue Ann in a very papa bear way when he realized she was spending a weird amount of time with his kid.
I’m not saying he’s not the dog she describes him as, but it wasn’t until he lashed out at her at the bar that she even wanted revenge. Until that point, Sue Ann still had a crush on him. Did she really have to kill Ben by giving him a dog-blood transfusion? Does anyone really deserve that?
WTF is up with Ma’s daughter?!
So this whole time, Sue Ann was keeping her daughter sick and locked up in the second story of her house. But...I am so confused. She doesn’t want her daughter mixed up with other kids because Sue Ann was horrendously bullied in high school? But then why does Sue Ann seem to enjoy spending time with the popular crowd and not her own daughter? In fact, she tries to force her daughter to burn with her when the kids make their great escape. WHY?
It just feels so random. Who is the father?
Why is Munchausen syndrome so hot right now?
Honestly, I don’t know if Ma had Munchausen syndrome or Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She both kept her daughter in a wheelchair for no reason and pretended to be sick for attention.
But the real question is, why is Munchausen everywhere in Hollywood right now? From Sharp Objects to The Act, it seems to be the hottest mental illness among middle-age women. In reality, the disorder is actually incredibly rare. I need to know why this is a trend!
Is Ma really dead?
The bad guys in these movies are always very hard to kill, and Ma was no exception. She was attacked, stabbed, and pushed down stairs, all to no avail until she was locked in her burning house. She seems to have accepted her fate when she lies in bed with a dead Ben, but we don’t actually see her die. Sus.
What do you say? Are you up for Ma 2: 2 Pissed 2 Furious?
