The Good Mother Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

The Good Mother Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson December 22, 2023

With The Good Mother (2023), director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte has a difficult time deciding if he wants to make a social drama about the effects that the opioid crisis have on a working-class New York family or produce a straight-up crime thriller. The film is a mixture of the two genres and the results are occasionally effective. As The Good Mother opens in Albany, New York in 2016, a young man is racing across the streets at night. A gunshot rings out and there's a transition to the home of Marissa Bennings (Hilary Swank) the following morning. Marissa is a chronic smoker and alcoholic. The empty bottle on her table suggests that she probably had a lot to drink the previous evening and may be at least a little hung over. She's a journalist for the Times Union and during a staff meeting, her son Toby (Jack Reynor), a cop with the Albany Police Department, comes through the door to tell Marissa that something's seriously wrong. Toby informs his mother that her youngest son Michael (Madison Harrison) was killed in a drive-by shooting last night. Marissa is too numb and shocked to cry but at Michael's funeral, she sees Paige (Olivia Cooke), her late son's girlfriend, and slaps her. Paige has been a drug addict and Marissa initially blames her for Michael's untimely demise. But right before Marissa's slap, Paige blurted out, "I'm pregnant." Marissa then realizes she shouldn't have hit Paige and apologizes to her afterward at a bar in Albany. Together, Marissa and Paige want to locate Michael's killer. Toby believes that Michael’s good friend, Ducky (Hopper Penn), is primarily responsible but did he really murder him? The police investigation is slow so Marissa and Paige conduct their own inquiry.

Coping with grief.

Paige reaches out on social media to see if anyone knows what transpired that fateful evening. She receives a lead from an older man who saw a white truck chasing Michael. It's later determined that the pursuer has a caduceus tatoo on one of his hands. The tragedy is a lot for Marissa to take in, especially since she lost her husband just three years prior. Marissa's kind and understanding editor Jim (Norm Lewis) gives her a couple months off. He says that she is their newspaper's best writer but hasn't written anything for a long while. Once Marissa digs deeper into her late son's past, she slowly rekindles her skill for writing.

The Good Mother succeeds at showing how addiction runs through the Bennings family. In fact, it could have been easily titled Like Mother Like Sons. The movie's working title was "Mother's Milk." The two capital letters are stamped on bags of drugs in Michael's suitcase, which contain a combination of fentanyl and heroin in them.

The picture's biggest weaknesses are that it doesn't delve deep enough into the Bennings' pasts. It also doesn't develop some of the other characters. For example, Marissa meets Laurie (Karen Aldridge) at an AA meeting. Laurie tells the group a harrowing story about losing her daughter that's not too dissimilar with the way Marissa lost Michael. Laurie and Marissa ride together to an outdoor clinic that's a safe injection site. But after this scene, Laurie is not seen or heard from again. At ninety minutes, Joris-Peyrafitte has edited together a taut whodunit, but the picture is lacking in background depth and character development.

The Good Mother Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Vertical Entertainment's fall Blu-ray release of The Good Mother comes on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25. The film appears in its original exhibition ratio of 2.39:1. The transfer reflects how I remember seeing the picture in the theater. A lot of The Good Mother takes place either at night or in dark interiors, such as Paige's place and the bar Marissa frequents (see Screenshot #s 5, 13, and 14). The sparse natural light brings out good details on the actors' faces (see frame grab #s 2, 3, 4, and 9). Vertical has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 27096 kbps. My video score is 4.25/5.00.

Vertical has included eight chapter breaks. Scenes cannot be selected from the menu, however. You will need to access them on the fly via remote.

The Good Mother Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Vertical has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (3794 kbps, 24-bit) and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo downmix (2005 kbps, 24-bit). I listened to the 5.1 mix. It delivers a very powerful and deep bass response even when a normal listening volume is chosen on the receiver. I turned mine down some but bass was still sonorous and resonant. Eric Slick's score and the ballads are fairly loud. As wide a range that the bass delivers, spoken words can be hard to hear in full at regular listening levels. I had to turn the sound up to fully comprehend all the dialogue. The 5.1 track is a little inconsistent and out of balance in terms of dialogue and f/x, but it sounds highly immersive overall.

Vertical includes an option for English SDH on the menu.

The Good Mother Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Vertical's disc contains absolutely zero extras.

The Good Mother Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Good Mother is a decent family drama and crime thriller that's better than critics have given it credit for. Hilary Swank, Olivia Cooke, and Jack Reynor each turn in solid performances. Vertical Entertainment's transfer replicates my theatrical experience well. When you play the 5.1 track, I would recommend having the bass turned down on your .LFE channel. Extras are zilch. RECOMMENDED.