A MOTHER'S EMBRACE Review

It's time to review another movie coming to Screambox, as we take a look today at the Brazilian horror feature, A Mother's Embrace, which will be dropping on the service on 9/16/2025!

A Mother's Embrace is directed by Cristian Ponce, and it starts off in the childhood of our protagonist, Ana. She and her mother start off at home--where her mom makes Ana guzzle down a full glass of strange tasting milk--but the two quickly head out to a local carnival.

At the fair, the two come upon an attraction which is a giant lady that you go inside and see the inner workings of the female body. You know, that old chestnut you've seen at every carnival you have ever been to. When they make their way far enough in to see the fetus display, Ana gets scared and decides she wants to go home.

That night, their apartment catches fire, but Ana can't wake her mother up to get out of their home.

We then flash forward to Ana as an adult where she has a career as a firefighter. She was recently put on desk duty after having a panic attack in the field, but her bosses allow her to return to the field after it's been determined she is not suffering from any significant mental health issues.

During a call to help a car that has crashed into a building, Ana steps on some kind of sharp object--I wasn't sure what it was, but it appeared to be the jawbone of an animal--and is about to be sent home when another call comes in. A nearby nursing home is collapsing, and its inhabitants will need to be evacuated!

Ana convinces her lieutenant to let her go on the new call, and the team arrives. Unfortunately, the situation at the care home turns out to be anything but routine...

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ Marjorie Estiano does a spectacular job as the lead, Ana. She is highly emotive, and all of her lines are very believable. Now, I don't speak Portuguese, but I was still able to relate to everything she said and did even through the language barrier. I was able to feel her fear and frustration and bravery as she dealt with the situation at the nursing home. She makes the most of the script and delivers a wonderful performance.

+ The third act turns the story a bit, and--for lack of a better way to put it--things start happening. The story of A Mother's Embrace itself isn't particularly strong, and the reveals in the third act don't exactly bowl you over, but there is some action and emotional work in the final segment of the movie.

With Ana facing some actual peril, besides just roaming around a nursing home and trying to tell people to evacuate, the movie gets a whole lot more engaging. And while I do not want to spoil anything, it's nice to see the film go all in on showing what the creature behind the tentacles we keep seeing is. Too many independent horror movies would save the budget and leave that to the imagination. But not here!

- The first two acts are truly underwhelming. At the 42 minute mark I paused the movie to get a drink, and I realized I had no idea what the story was or what was going on. For the first hour, this is basically just stuff happening, and nothing feels like it's building to anything. 

It took me far longer than it should have to realize the nursing home stop for our firefighter team WAS the story and not just a plot detour like their first stop of the night was. It just felt like so much of a time killer for the first several minutes they are there. But like I said: it seemed like the first half of the movie was just stuff happening to happen, so I'm not putting that necessarily on me.

- The movie starts off with a flashback / backstory on Ana's childhood where her mother... tries to murder/suicide the both of them? Which is a very powerful origin story for Ana! But ultimately, this feels like another thing that just happens and doesn't ultimately mean much. I guess it's characterization for Ana--we come back to it and it pays off in her desire to rescue Lia, the little girl living with her father at the nursing home--but I wanted this situation to tie more directly in to the third act of the film. Somehow.

A Mother's Embrace does get better in its final act, but for my money, it just took too long to happen. And by the time the film started feeling engaging, I was too out of its grasp to get involved again. Marjorie Estiano truly does a fantastic job here as the lead, and I'd love to watch more movies in which she stars, but I feel the screenplay let her down dramatically. If A Mother's Embrace had done a better job establishing the eerieness of the nursing home early on, I could have enjoyed this more, but that doesn't happen.

🍿 SCORE = 28 / 100