Every New Yorker has a subway story, a tale of culture clash, entitlement, cacophonic calamity, or worse. The subways of New York City are a breeding ground for tension, what with the rush of strangers, the jarring disruptions, and the uncaringly close quarters. For women, it’s even more stressful, as too many men use the claustrophobic enclosure as a means of exploiting a literally captive audience. This is how “Materna” begins, on a subway with one ranting man (Sturgill Simpson) disturbing his fellow passengers. But in this painfully pretentious directorial debut from David Gutnik focuses narrowly on four in particular.
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The incident on the train will be splinted across the film, shown in suspenseful bursts that won’t reveal what precisely went down in that clamoring car until the final frame. In between these splinters, Gutnik and co-writers/leading ladies Assol Abdullina and Jade Eshete wedge vignettes about four women and their issues with motherhood. What does that motherhood have to do with the subway? I’ll spare you the suspense: absolutely nothing.
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The setup of the subway becomes a superficial echo that screams: EVERY HUMAN HAS A STORY. Yes, while we are the main characters in our own lives, we may be simply background actors to our fellow straphangers. So, what “Materna” illustrates are the moments leading up to this quartet of women’s shared subway trauma. And it’s a rough start.
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The first chapter follows Jean (Kate Lyn Sheil), a wealthy and reclusive white woman developing some steamy virtual reality program from her spacious apartment/studio. Living alone high above the hubbub of New York, she is isolated and quiet, save for resentful phone conversations with her mother, who really thinks she should freeze her eggs. A mundane and mute routine follows days in, days out—the stuff of clumsy screenplay writing. There’ll be some plot and some blood, because women’s bodies, amirite? But the character of Jean is frustratingly vague. So, when something life-changing happens to her, it has all the impact of a cotton ball to the forehead.
The second vignette is stronger, perhaps because its protagonist exists outside a lofty bubble. Eshete portrays Mona, a Black actress whose latest audition piece triggers feelings about her estranged mother, a devout Jehovah’s Witness. Though they only communicate through text messages, Mona finds opportunities to express her yearning and hurt through her rehearsals opposite a determinedly patient mentor (Cassandra Freeman). In the first section, Sheil was left to drown in a lack of dialogue and uninspired visuals. (How much bathtub soaking can one woman do?) Thankfully, Eshete has layers to sink her teeth into, beginning with the cool exterior of a professional actress and Black woman, who has had to perfect a supreme level of chill to survive and thrive in this ruthless racist world. Beyond that, she unfurls agony and anger in an explosive scene that brings life into “Materna.” It’s the closest thing to resolution this movie will offer, then we move on.
Next up is Ruth (Lindsay Burdge), a fiercely conservative and white stay-at-home mom who refuses to believe her 10-year-old son is to blame for his latest school suspension. Seeking solace, she invites her brother Gabe (Rory Culkin) over for dinner, but he is poor and liberal. So, before long, a bevy of political buzzwords spill out her lips like SJW, “groupthink,” and “All Lives Matter.” The cast—which also includes Michael Chernus as the obnoxious husband—practically emit sparks as they come to ideological blows over the dinner table. It’s a cheap retread of the societal dialogues that have played out for five years now. Nothing new or surprising is wrung from this rehashing, just a smug approach that constructs Ruth as a cardboard cutout spouting Fox News talking points. Right when she has a moment that might lead somewhere challenging or remotely humanizing, “Materna” abandons her for its fourth chapter.
Far and away from the best of the bunch, this section follows a Kyrgyz woman named Perizad (Abdullina), who returns to her homeland to attend the funeral of her beloved uncle. The moment her mother meets Perizad at the airport, low-grade bickering begins. Things get more heated as her grandmother joins the dynamic. All three women turn to nitpick each other to channel their anger over their grief. It’s an achingly relatable response. Here, the quiet moments matter, and the visual cues actually play because they are specific, not wan cliches. A gentle hand stroking a stain on a wall. A snarl of rope lilting in the breeze. A bucket of paint accidentally overturned. We learn who these women are, not through a frenzy of hot topics or melancholic close-ups, but through their interactions and reactions. It’s little wonder Abdullina took home the Best Actress honor from Tribeca Festival 2021. With a mesmerizing presence and steady gaze, she grounds this film that refuses to find a rhythm. Sadly, it’s not her story that concludes “Materna.” Back we must go to the subway to a device ill-suited and infuriating.
Rather than reveal spoilers, I’ll say this: the movie spares no humanity for the man having a meltdown on the subway. Instead, it goes for a cheap catharsis that is pandering rather than probing. You can practically see Gutnik patting himself on the back for the final freeze-frame that appears a clumsy nod to the gritty NYC films of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Who cares if it’s unearned? Are you not entertained? No. I’d rather watch “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” again. It better captures the vibe of New York and the complicated characters who collide and thrive within it.
Ultimately, “Materna” feels like a hodgepodge of half-finished drafts from one-act plays, pompous short films, and dusty first screenplays. There are undoubtedly moments that work, including Eshete’s climactic scene and the whole of Abdullina’s thread. But overall, the film is a derivative, meandering slog. Despite its title, “Materna” doesn’t deliver a deep or even diverse portrait of motherhood. While its subway setting might suggest a wide array of people presented, most protagonists are wealthy, thin, young, and gorgeous. (Perhaps Gutnik thinks nothing interesting happens to women who don’t look like models?) As it is, his narrow focus reflects how shallow is his efforts at truly understanding—much less capturing—the complexity of modern womanhood in this metropolis. [C-]
