Octavia Spencer’s captivating performance elevates Ma from just another “teen” thriller.
Octavia Spencer is captivating as Sue Ann Ellington—Ma to her new friends—a middle-aged veterinarian who spends her spare time winning over the neighborhood kids by buying them alcohol and letting them party in her basement. She couldn’t stand to see them drink and drive, she says. Why is a well-adjusted woman worried about making friends with kids? Is she really that well-adjusted after all? We soon find out, as Ma’s backstory is peppered in throughout the film’s present-day action.
As Ma begins to further insert herself into their lives, her character necessitates Spencer to bounce from comedic one-liners to batshit crazy on a dime, and she handles it with all the authenticity and believably we’ve come to expect from her. She is both Annie Wilkes terrifying and Carrie White empathetic. The story shares some threads with both Carrie and Misery but, for all Ma’s violence and dark turns, it plays it a little too safe, a little too by-the-numbers. Regardless, it’s a fun thriller with a great performance by Spencer (and not too shabby ones from the teen actors).
Ma is in the upper tier of “teen” horror, for sure, but with a quicker pace and more intensity, it could’ve been a home run.
7/10
Reviews from the Couch 