Movies: Salve Maria (2024) by Mar Coll: The Motherhood Abyss

Movie Summary: A Writer's Descent into Postpartum Fear

• Title: The Psychological Horror of Postpartum Dread

• Summary of Content: Salve Maria follows Maria (Laura Weissmahr), a new mother and writer silently struggling with postpartum stress or depression. Her already fragile psychological state is shattered when she becomes transfixed by the shocking news of a French woman who drowned her infant twins. This disturbing case prompts Maria's own frightening descent into the unspoken, terrifying complexities of motherhood and the possibility of maternal regret. Based on the novel Las Madres No, the film unfolds as a slow-burn psychological thriller set against the contrasting beautiful landscapes of Catalonia.

• Movie Trend: Postpartum Psychological Horror and Slow-Burn Domestic Thriller. The film fits the trend of intense, intimate dramas that use domestic settings and the emotional turmoil of new parenthood to generate profound psychological dread, often challenging idealized views of motherhood.

• Social Trend: De-Stigmatization of Postpartum Depression and Regret. It directly addresses the vital social trend of bringing mental health struggles in new mothers—particularly feelings of regret and shame—out of the shadows for public discussion and de-stigmatization.

• Director Info: Directed by Mar Coll, an acclaimed Spanish filmmaker known for her dramatic work, returning to features after more than a decade. The screenplay is an adaptation of Katixa Agirre's provocative novel.

• Major Awards: The film has received significant acclaim, securing 10 wins & 15 nominations total at major European festivals and awards, including Winner Goya Best New Actress (Laura Weissmahr), a Locarno Film Festival Special Mention, and multiple Gaudí Awards.

Why it is Trending: Award-Winning Maternal Horror

Salve Maria is trending due to its bold confrontation of the taboo subject of maternal regret and the instant critical success of its lead actress and direction across the European festival circuit.

• Award Recognition: The massive haul of 10 wins and 15 nominations (including Best New Actress wins for Laura Weissmahr at the Goya, Sant Jordi, and Valladolid festivals) guarantees high visibility and critical interest.

• Taboo Subject Matter: The premise—a mother becoming obsessed with infanticide while battling her own psychological distress—is inherently provocative and challenging, ensuring intense critical debate and audience curiosity about its controversial themes.

• Director's Return: The film marks the return of respected Spanish auteur Mar Coll to feature filmmaking after a long hiatus, generating buzz among critics and cinephiles.

• Genre Subversion: By applying the mechanics of a horror/thriller to the usually sentimental subject of new motherhood, the film taps into the growing audience appetite for sophisticated, psychological domestic dramas.

Why to Watch This Movie: Unflinching Psychological Depth and Star-Making Performance

The film is essential viewing for its raw, unfiltered look at the dark emotional realities of new motherhood and its high-caliber acting.

• Tour-de-Force Lead Performance: Laura Weissmahr's award-winning turn as Maria is the film's centerpiece, delivering a portrayal of postpartum distress that is described as deeply determined and tortured.

• Psychological Tension: The plot functions as a meticulous slow-burn study in emotional deterioration, generating tension not through external threats, but through Maria's silent internal battle against stress, exhaustion, and terrifying intrusive thoughts.

• Confronting Maternal Regret: The movie unflinchingly explores the "most terrifying side of motherhood: regret," providing a rare and necessary cinematic space to discuss feelings of dissatisfaction and loss of self that often accompany new parenthood.

• Visual Contrast: The film masterfully uses the beautiful, serene Catalan landscapes (La Vall de Boí) as a stark and unsettling contrast to the psychological hell unfolding in Maria's mind, amplifying her isolation.

Where to watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/salve-maria (Spain)

Link IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21920688/

Link Review: https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/465176/

About movie: https://www.dulacdistribution.com/film/salve-maria/211

What Trend is Followed?: Postpartum Psychological Horror (PPH)

The movie follows the specialized trend of Postpartum Psychological Horror (PPH), which uses the emotional and physical vulnerability of a new mother to generate existential and domestic dread, often drawing on feminist themes to critique societal pressures on women.

• Domestic Terror: PPH utilizes the home—the traditional sanctuary—as a place of escalating fear and mental collapse, often relying on ambiguous reality (is the threat real or internal?) to build tension.

• Challenging Idealization: The trend deliberately pushes back against the idealized, sanitized vision of motherhood frequently portrayed in media, forcing an examination of stress, exhaustion, and intrusive thoughts that can lead to psychosis.

• Literary Adaptation: The film's source material, Las Madres No, reflects a growing trend of adapting provocative, feminist-leaning literary works that focus on women's internal lives and societal taboos.

Movie Plot: The Obsession and the Descent

The plot meticulously tracks Maria's internal psychological spiral, triggered by external news:

• The Setup: Maria, a new mother and writer, lives with her partner, Nico. She is already suffering from silent postpartum depression and stress, compounded by the continuous cries of her infant.

• The Catalyst: Maria becomes transfixed by the shocking news of a French woman who drowned her infant twins. This news creates a dizzying possibility of maternal failure and regret in her own mind.

• The Obsession: Maria's focus shifts entirely to the external case, prompting an internal journey where she begins to question her own capacity for motherhood and love, blurring the lines between her reality and the other woman's tragedy.

• The Slow Deterioration: The film depicts the slow, heavy, and deliberately paced deterioration of her mental state, where "hardly anything happens" externally but everything shatters internally, driving the audience to the "verge of a nervous breakdown" alongside her.

• Partial Resolution: The tension finds a partial release in the final half hour when Maria finally ventures outside and engages with the beautiful Catalan landscape, suggesting a shift in her psychological focus, though the film's ambiguity about her fate remains.

Director's Vision: The Cinematic Expression of Internal Hell

Director Mar Coll's vision is centered on giving cinematic form to the invisible, isolating struggle of a distressed mind, resisting the urge to turn the story into a simple, sensational thriller.

• Emotional Realism: Coll aims for deep psychological immersion, forcing the audience to experience the stress and exhaustion of the protagonist, making the continuous sound of the baby's crying a core element of the atmosphere.

• Adapting Ambiguity: By adapting the novel Las Madres No, Coll's vision must carefully translate the literary ambiguity surrounding maternal intent and mental state without providing easy answers.

• Contrasting Aesthetics: The deliberate use of beautiful, wide shots of the Catalan countryside contrasts the claustrophobic anxiety of the interiors, reflecting the protagonist's desire to escape her domestic prison.

• Actress as Focal Point: Coll utilizes the exceptional talent of Laura Weissmahr to keep the focus intensely on the character's face and internal turmoil, making the psychological drama paramount.

Themes: Postpartum Psyche, Regret, and Societal Pressure

The central themes are focused on the mental health crisis in new mothers and the expectations placed upon them:

• The Terror of Regret: The film’s most provocative theme is the existence of maternal regret—the unspoken feeling that motherhood was a mistake—which Maria grapples with in horrifying isolation.

• Postpartum Mental Health: The narrative serves as a serious examination of postpartum depression and anxiety, using the thriller framework to highlight the life-altering severity of these mental health conditions.

• The Deceit of the Perfect Family: The initial depiction of Maria and Nico as a "happy couple excited about a new child" contrasts sharply with the ensuing dread, exposing the societal pressure to maintain the illusion of perfect, blissful new parenthood.

• Isolation and Transfixion: Maria's transfixion with the other woman's case symbolizes the profound isolation felt by depressed new mothers, who often seek connections or understanding in extreme external narratives.

Key Success Factors: High Critical Acclaim and Timeliness

The film's success is driven by the strength of its lead actress and its courage to tackle a highly controversial yet urgent social topic:

• Award-Winning Lead: Laura Weissmahr's sweeping success at top European awards (Goya, Gaudí) is the primary driver of critical and audience attention.

• Critical Praise for Depth: The film is praised for its thematic depth and thought-provoking commentary on suffering, successfully avoiding the "garbage" or "bad acting" criticisms often leveled at low-budget genre films.

• Established Director: Mar Coll's established reputation ensures the film is viewed as a serious, artistic work rather than exploitation, giving it a strong foundation for international distribution (Be For Films).

Awards and Nominations: Major European Festival and National Award Success

The film is a major award winner, securing 10 wins & 15 nominations total at prestigious European bodies:

• Major Wins: Goya Best New Actress (Laura Weissmahr), Valladolid Best Actress (Laura Weissmahr), Gaudí Award Best Adapted Screenplay, and a Locarno Film Festival Special Mention.

• Key Nominations: Nominee for the Golden Leopard Best Film at Locarno and Golden Spike Best Film at Valladolid, demonstrating its competitive position at top-tier festivals.

Critics reception: Praise for Timeliness and Allegorical Depth

The 18 critic reviews are sharply divided, confirming the film's polarizing yet profound impact:

• Profound and Captivating: Critics praised the film for its "mesmerizing cinematic experience," its "stunning visual effects," and its intricate weaving of suspense and thought-provoking commentary on suffering.

• Slow and Tiring: Conversely, one featured review (ma-cortes) called the film "somewhat weak and boring" with a "slow and heavy plot," noting that the "continuous cries of the baby... puts the audience on the verge of a nervous breakdown." This highlights the film's intentional, challenging pace.

• Literary Success: Critics recognized the successful adaptation of the complex novel Las Madres No by Mar Coll and Valentina Viso, which won a Gaudí Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Reviews: Polarizing Audience Reaction Driven by Execution

• IMDb User Rating: The film holds an average user rating of 6.4/10 from 596 votes. This solid score, despite the intense polarizing reaction, confirms that the film succeeded in deeply moving and engaging its target audience interested in psychological drama.

• The Pacing Divide: User reviews confirm that the slow, deliberate pacing is the central point of contention: some find it "mesmerizing" and emotional, while others find it "long and boring."

What Movie Trend film is following: Postpartum Psychological Horror (PPH)

The film is following the specialized movie trend of Postpartum Psychological Horror (PPH), which subverts the idealized version of new motherhood to explore themes of mental collapse, anxiety, and the taboo subject of maternal regret within a tight, domestic thriller framework.

What Big Social Trend is following: De-Stigmatization of Postpartum Mental Health

The big social trend the film is following is the De-Stigmatization of Postpartum Mental Health. The movie contributes to the growing public conversation that validates and normalizes feelings of stress, depression, and even regret among new mothers, moving away from past cultural shaming.

What Consumer Trend is following: Demand for Psychological Depth in Genre Films

The consumer trend followed is the Demand for Psychological Depth in Genre Films. Modern audiences are increasingly seeking genre films (Horror/Thriller) that use the framework of fear to explore complex, timely, and philosophically challenging real-world issues, such as the fragility of the human mind under extreme stress.

Final Verdict: A Searing, Award-Winning Psychological Descent

Salve Maria is a searing and necessary piece of psychological cinema, offering an unflinching, award-winning look into the abyss of postpartum dread and the destructive power of a societal taboo. Driven by Laura Weissmahr's career-defining performance, it is a challenging, profound, and timely film that effectively weaponizes silence and domesticity to create genuine horror.

Key Trend highlighted – The effective use of domestic psychological horror to generate critical dialogue around the de-stigmatization of postpartum mental illness and maternal regret.

Key Insight – The film demonstrates that the most terrifying horror is often not a monster outside the window, but the terrifying possibilities that can be unlocked inside a stressed, isolated mind.

Similar movies: Maternal Psychological Horror and Domestic Dread

• The Babadook (2014): A definitive PPH film that similarly uses maternal exhaustion and resentment to conjure a physical manifestation of psychological dread.

• We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011): A psychological drama that explores the profound guilt and societal judgment associated with a mother's failure to love and understand her child.

• Tully (2018): A comedy-drama that provides a realistic, non-romanticized look at the exhaustion and mental health struggles faced by a mother in the postpartum period.