Mother Mary

Mother Mary, a world-famous pop icon, prepares to mount a comeback performance in the wake of an onstage accident. Overwhelmed during a costume fitting, she flees to the English countryside to seek out fashion designer Sam Anselm, her estranged former friend and collaborator. With three days until Mary’s show, Sam grudgingly agrees to design her a dress.

Tensions rise as they make preparations at Sam’s barn-turned-workshop, and Mary struggles to explain her vision for the dress. Sam questions her about the upcoming performance and her accident, which some suspect was a suicide attempt. She refuses to listen to Mary’s new song, forcing her to perform the choreography without music. Suggesting a long train made from her previous iconic dresses to be torn away onstage, Sam recognizes that Mary is desperate for personal and artistic clarity.

Old resentments are laid bare as a vengeful Sam forces Mary to confront the end of their close creative partnership: despite launching Mary’s career together, Sam was denied credit and cut out of her inner circle. Sam explains that she has not listened to Mary’s music since being visited by a ghost. At a concert after their estrangement, her bitterness toward Mary resulted in a broken tooth, and she awoke after having it removed to discover the wound had released a spectral figure of red cloth.

Mary reveals that she saw the same ghost after a séance with her team where Imogen, a fan possessed by a mysterious spirit, cut open Mary’s hand. That night, the red ghost appeared to Mary and attempted to enter her wound, but she escaped. Exhausted by her demanding tour, she was confronted by the ghost during a concert and severely injured, falling as the spirit inhabited her. Though recovered from the accident, she remains haunted by the ghost now inside her.

Sam leads a reluctant Mary in a ritual to exorcise the spirit, using her dressmaking tools and invoking their past collaborations. Taking Sam’s shears, Mary slices open her own chest and Sam pulls out the ghost, turning the spirit of their mutual trauma into harmless fabric. Mary apologizes for having wronged Sam and her team rushes her to the show, while Sam is inspired to craft the red fabric into a dress. Her assistant Hilda describes Mary taking the stage, shedding her original costume and dedicating her song to Sam, who envisions Mother Mary in the finished dress.