Plot & Summary
In this somber drama by Lukas Moodysson, two different families are nearly destroyed by their pursuit of cash across the globe. Video-game entrepreneur Gael Garcia Bernal jets from New York to Bangkok to close a lucrative deal, leaving wife Michelle Williams, a stressed-out surgeon, to cope with their daughter’s growing attachment to their devoutly Christian Filipino nanny. In a heavily ironic parallel, the nanny’s two sons in the Philippines miss her so badly that the 10-year-old takes drastic steps to earn money he thinks will speed her return. Moodysson’s meticulous attention to surfaces allows him to draw a stark contrast between the Americans’ affluence and the Asians’ poverty, but his final observation—that somehow the rich will muddle through—is hardly a bold statement. In English and subtitled Tagalog and Thai. Swedish director Lukas Moodysson makes his English-language debut after building a solid reputation with Show Me Love, Together and Lilya 4-Ever. It is the film Williams was shooting when news broke of her ex-partner Heath Ledger’s death, making some of her character’s more emotionally tortured scenes especially painful to watch.
Moodysson enters Babel-esque territory in this human drama of globalization, but Mammoth also works as a minor corrective to that Oscar nominee’s overwrought approach. Mammoth is more interested in the ways people from various cultures connect, or don’t quite connect, in everyday situations. Moodysson isn’t always subtle, but he elicits strong work from the actors and fills the movie with nicely observed details—his portrayal of life in the Philippines feels especially vivid. Any filmmaker who attempts a drama with this kind of scope and philosophical contemplation risks looking pretentious or foolish, but the finer points make Mammoth worthwhile.
Rating
7.0/10 ;2,107 votes
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