Goodnight Mommy

A remake of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s Goodnight Mommy, Goodnight Mommy follows twin brothers Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nicholas Crovetti) as they arrive at a remote house to spend some time with their estranged mother (Naomi Watts) – with complications ensuing after Elias and Lukas become convinced that there’s something very off with their mom. Filmmaker Matt Sobel, working from Kyle Warren’s screenplay, delivers a decent-enough thriller that’s never quite as engrossing or enthralling as one might’ve hoped, with the picture’s arms-length atmosphere perpetuated (and exacerbated) by an often excessively deliberate pace that dulls the impact of certain encounters and sequences. It’s clear, then, that Goodnight Mommy benefits from a relatively engrossing central mystery and several top-notch performances, as, in terms of the latter, Watts turns in predictably compelling work that’s impressively matched by her two much younger costars. And although the narrative does suffer from a palpable let’s-get-on-with-it-already feel, with the wheel-spinning midsection occasionally a little too lackadaisical for its own good, Goodnight Mommy builds towards a revelation-heavy finale that effectively explains away the oddball behavior of its various characters – which does, in the end, cement the movie’s place as a mostly watchable endeavor that might’ve benefited from a shorter running time.

**1/2 out of ****