Poor Naomi Watts.

I mean, let’s just be real here.  Naomi Watts is an excellent actress.  One could argue that she’s one of the best actresses working today.  She’s someone who can be convincing in just about any genre.  She can do drama.  She can do comedy.  She can do horror.  She can star in small indie films and expensive blockbusters.  She can play suburban housewives and sultry femme fatales with equal skill.  She’s an actress who has played a wide variety roles and has shown a willingness to take risks in her career.

And yet, far too often, she gets cast in disappointing and misconceived films.  Indeed, it sometimes seem like David Lynch is the only director to really understand just how good Naomi Watts can be, whether he’s working with her in Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, or Twin Peaks: The Return.  Watts provided Twin Peaks: The Return with a heart and the scene where she tells off the two crooks who are extorting money from her husband still carries a punch.  She brought a lot of genuine and needed emotion to a miniseries that would have otherwise been cold and impersonal.  Unfortunately, not every director has the insight or the skill of a David Lynch.

Just consider 2022’s Goodnight Mommy, a thoroughly unnecessary remake of a 2014 Austrian film.  Watts is cast as the Mother, a former Hollywood actress who now lives on an isolated farm and who spends most of her time drinking and sulking in her room.  Due to some recent plastic surgeon, the Mother’s face is completely and totally bandaged.

This concerns her twin sons, Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nikolas Crovetti).  They worry about how strange the Mother has been acting ever since they moved out to the farm with her.  (While the Mother was getting plastic surgery, the twins were living with their father.)  The Mother orders them to stay out of her room and hardly speaks to them.  When Elias notices that his mother’s formerly blue eyes now appear to be green, he worries that his real mother may have been replaced with an imposter.

As I mentioned earlier, Goodnight Mommy is based on a 2014 Austrian film.  The original film, if I remember correctly, was effective creepy, well-acted, and full of atmosphere.  The remake feels more than a bit pointless and slow.  The big twist that was so effective in the Austrian film falls flat in the American remake, largely because the kids playing the brothers in the remake are both directed to give boring and inauthentic performances.  The remake of Goodnight Mommy mistakes a slow space for a creepy atmosphere.

That said, Naomi Watts gives a good performance as the Mother, one that will probably keep viewers guessing if they haven’t already seen the original film.  In fact, Watts is so good that it just makes it all the more disappointing that the film itself feels so pointless.  When it comes to Goodnight Mommy, go with the original and ask your local film producers to give Naomi Watts a role in a decent movie.