An Unforgettable Experience Brought By Muschietti, Del Toro and Chastain ! !

Rating: 10/10 (19 January 2013)

First of all, my fellow moviegoers and horror-fans, i must begin by saying, that, even in a decade's time, i doubt that my instant love for this film would have changed in any way.
Was it because of the wonderful work of the entire cast and crew on the film that struck me?Or even that rare feeling you get, when a film has been carefully nurtured with love and selflessness and raised up to be one of the best in the genre to come out for a good long while?Or is it the wonderful Jessica Chastain with a little mix of Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau's assuring performance as Lucas, and of course, Isabelle Nélisse's and Megan Charpentier haunting performances of Lilly and Victoria.
And once we are rolling and underway, Muschietti and Del Toro never really let us go.Their ideas, their intelligence and vision, along with some brilliant acting, made this film a special cinematic experience.
Suspense and horror wise the filmmakers have made a wise choice not to go with blood, gore and other clichés nowadays horrors are filled to the brim with.Another great choice is the masterful cast they have chosen-Chastain, Waldau the whole cast.And since i'm very fond of Chastain, i will get on the subject thoroughly in a moment.The film was shot in incredible style not revealing in the opening scenes and ,step by step, showing more and more, both story and emotional wise.Not only that, but with the titular character of Mama, we find more about her, we see more of her, and in the end, we experience what means being her, being all of them.This storytelling arc i found very suspenseful and the great character development in Annabel and Victoria, the bigger sister, lead up to the climax, which is very heavy on emotions, pain and a triumph of the director's extraordinary vision.
Which, in my humble opinion, leads to the strongest quality, that this film has in it's possession:the cast!!Game of Thrones's Waldau does a really solid job portraying Lucas, the uncle, who never gave up on his nieces and kept searching, when nobody else did, he never let go.
Isabelle Nélisse and Megan Charpentier are great playing the two wild, insecure, girls and manage to find the perfect line between this world and the civilization they are so reluctantly brought into by their uncle and his girlfriend.Although the word "girlfriend" is very misleading in this situation, it does no justice to the relationship between Chastain's Annabel and Waldau's Lucas at all.Throughout the whole movie we have seen real love and real human feeling, not just a bunch of teens sleeping together and fooling around which basically happens in every horror movie.But here, people are full-blooded, real, emotional, humane.So, they clearly love each other, after all Annabel stayed with him in order to help him raise his nieces, they moved in a new house together, she left her life of the tattooed, beer-drinking, guitar-playing, Rooney Mara-resembling woman, that was not yet ready to be a mother.At the end, Annabel has become so fond of the girls, that she takes the role of a real mother, caring, protecting and loving them, when Lucas in not around.She is risking her own life for them and is gifted with the love of the bigger sister, Victoria, in return, which ultimately proves to be at the center of the main conflict-the unconditional love of two mothers towards the two sisters, and the choice that they have to make.A real mother, or Mama-a hurt, but jealous ghost, with a history of her own, a mother, who is able to take a life in order to preserve it, a mother, who defended the two children for years in the wild, as if they were her own, but not a real, full-blooded mother at all...There is no right choice here, which means things are ultimately going to end bad in one way or another...
So, for those who were able to bear with me for so long, i'm going to wrap it all in a nutshell:this film is an experience, that needs to be seen, an experience, resembling a beautiful, but also painful story with no winners and real, human emotions.It reminds me of Nicole Kidman's The Others in a way...And being introduced to Jessica Chastain's warm and full-blooded portrayal of an otherwise clichéd character, that she shows has been played the wrong way all those years, is the most important experience for me.She was brilliant, and as i have grown to love Chastain for her roles in the past two years, for her devotion and skillfulness, she is the best choice for this role.If horror movies had more overall quality and were higher-regarded as movies not only made for the purpose of cheap jumps, but for enjoying a piece of film making of real cinematic value, in a world where scripts are better, Jessica Chastain could even get nominated for an Oscar among other high-profile awards for her mesmerizing and beautiful, yet humane portrayal of a forced-by-the-circumstances mother, ready to do anything to protect the ones she loves.
So, with the 1000-word limit upon me, for one of the best films in the genre for the last years and a wonderful film as a whole, this piece of devoted filmmaking and acting, will keep you mesmerized until the very end and you'll be discussing it even afterward.It definitely left an impression on me, and i can't wait to see the beautiful Chastain again, as soon as possible, as she has proved to be equally impressive and devoted in every genre she has worked in and every role she has taken.The one-two, that's shaping up at the U.S. box-office this weekend for her, proves she covers more cinematic ground than most, and that the future is bright in her presence!I wish her the Lead Actress Oscar this year, as she absolutely deserves it for her work on Zero Dark Thirty!
My rate:a deserved 10/10 !!!