Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

Pop Culture Happy Hour

The hosts and critics dive into a detailed review of Mahershala Ali's new film *Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother*, following a newly widowed Muslim hitman

Key takeaways

• Mahershala Ali delivers a career-defining performance as Latif, a devout Muslim contract killer struggling with grief and single parenthood after his wife's death.
• Director Bassam Tariq crafted the film from the ashes of a scrapped *Blade* reboot, resulting in a grounded, budget-conscious narrative that prioritizes character over spectacle.

Main topics

• Film review and analysis
• Islamic representation in media

Notable quotes

"Best movie of the year, man. I mean, to me, this is everything I want out of a movie."

Conclusion

The episode serves as a compelling endorsement for viewers seeking tho

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) This message comes from Keep It. If you have an itch for pop culture news, look no further than Crooked Media's Keep It podcast. Every Wednesday, Keep It will lead you through the entertainment news minds and Hollywood gossip. Listen on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (0:16) It's like, I'm a hitman, but I'm also a dad. It's like, yes. Speaker 1 (0:27) So, Mahershala Ali's new movie isn't the new Blade reboot, but believe me, it is worth your time. He's a hitman who's newly widowed and wants out of the game to focus on his family and faith. And there are some obvious cinematic tropes for this premise to take, but your mother, your mother, your mother carves out its own path. Ali is doing one of the things he does best, bringing humanity and gravitas to a complicated figure. I'm Aisha Harris. This is NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. And I'm here with culture writer and critic Shamira Ibrahim. Hi, Shamira. Welcome back. Hey, Aisha. Happy to talk to you again. Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. And also with us is Vulture TV critic Roxana Haddadi. Welcome back to you too, Roxana. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad I have both of you here with me. So your mother, your mother, your mother. It's Houston, Texas, and Mahershala Ali is Latif, a devout Muslim who also happens to be a contract killer. When his wife passes away, Latif has to adjust to being a single dad to three kids, which includes his teenage daughter, Fatiha, played by Adia. She doesn't know quite what her dad does for a living, but she is starting to get suspicious. Latif's main focus now is solo parenting, to be exact, procuring breast milk for his infant daughter. Not an easy task. But his boss, Mike, has other plans. He's played by Leif Nockley. And Mike currently has beef with ex-military Christian militia leader Pastor Juan, played to the hilt, to the rafters, to Eleven by John Cho. And he needs Lateef to handle him. The film is written and directed by Bassam Tariq. And just a little bit of backstory, Tariq and Ali were both attached to the Blade reboot that eventually got scrapped. And so sort of out of the ashes of that, this movie's emerged. This one is from Orion Pictures and Amazon MGM Studios. So we should note that Amazon supports NPR and pays to distribute some of our content. Your Mother Cubed, as I've been calling it lately, is in theaters now. Speaker 3 (2:26) I've been opting for Your Mother X3, by the way. Speaker 1 (2:30) That's what I've been doing. Sure, sure. YM3. Your mother X3, your mother times three. Any of this could work because sometimes saying it all at once is a mouthful. But Roxanna, we were chatting about this before we started taping and you have some very, very strong feelings about this one. So tell us more. I Speaker 2 (2:49) do. Speaker 1 (2:49) Yeah, I do. And I'm going to say what I said offline. Speaker 2 (2:52) Best movie of the year, man. I mean, to me, this is everything I want out. of a movie. It is, I think, a very dense, introspective, felt... examination of faith and what that means for an individual person, what that means for an individual person with a variety of familial and professional and cultural and just like human being responsibilities. I love the headiness of all of that in this film. I also love that there's like a lot of violence in this film. I want those two things. And I just think the script, the action sequences. all of the acting, and I would love for us to talk about some people who are not Mahershala and John Cho, who are both great, but this cast is so dense. I really started crying at the title card and did not stop. It just is incredible, I think. I really have been badgering people in my life to go see it. So I'm really curious. I'm so excited we're having this conversation. But yeah, for me, it's like a no notes, that's where. I am. Speaker 1 (4:04) Yeah, yeah. I really do hope people see this in the theater because it looks immaculate. Yeah, I feel you, Roxanna. Shamira, please tell us. How are we feeling? Yeah, I mean, as someone who's Speaker 3 (4:14) normally an aggressive malcontent, this actually hits all of my soft spots, right? Of course, as a Black Muslim woman, that is also a part of something of importance to me. I don't want to get too far into the representation weeds of it, but that is definitely also significant in the crafting of this story. John Wick with a single father trying to get breast milk. You got me. All right. You got me, right? Yeah. The theme of just a crisis of faith and then different ways and different textures in which it is explored, not just within Islamic faith, but also offers nuance and heft to the ways in which. People sometimes orientalize the idea of the pious Muslim and how we actually go through and interpret our own relationship with spirituality. And I found that remarkably compelling. The acting was phenomenal out of this world and some really great performances. And the camera work, just completely stunning. One of those experiences that you'll really be deprived of if you don't watch it in large format. Really great, deliberate camera work, really great close-up shots that are still lingering with me. I'm still processing. I actually want to go see it at least one more time in the theater. So I really hope that people continue to see it. Speaker 1 (5:25) Yeah, yeah. That was one thing that I absolutely noted. There's one scene in particular that stood out to me, one shot in particular, where at one point Lateef is... He's found someone to give him breast milk and happens to be a sex worker, I think. They suggest that she is. I'm not sure they fully disclose whether or not she is or is not or, like, is in between. But anyway, he finds someone to provide his daughter with breast milk. And there's a moment in that scene where things start to go awry and, like, the camera sort of pans downward and upward and tilts and... It's just kind of immaculate. And I was like, oh, this is the shot. This is why we come to the movies. Yes, yes, yes. 100%. This is a movie I think that could easily, before I saw it, I think it was being kind of sold as full-on action. John Wick, yes, yes, yes. But like, and Roxanna, you said like it has a lot of violence. It does have a lot of violence, but so much of this movie is quieter than that. Like it opens with the scene where, you know. Lateef is doing his hitman thing, but then he finds out that his wife has died. So like it kind of ends less fantastically than you would expect in this movie. And then it's a very long time before we get more violence. That's what I liked about this. The creators like Mahershala and the others have talked about how this movie was kind of on a budget. So I think part of that played into it. But that's the best case scenario. It's like, OK, we can't have all these huge action sequences. So we're going to create more story and we're going to create more moments. The fact, again, that so much of the first part of his film is just him going around trying to procure breast milk while also having to deal with a boss and violence. He even finds moments of humor that are