Full of disturbing imagery, David Lowery’s “Mother Mary” isn’t a horror film, but an intense character piece where regret becomes the monster that possesses one’s soul. Lowery’s latest is a bold cinematic experience and an inventive visual representation of resentment and redemption.

​Pop singer and music icon, Mother Mary (an excellent Anne Hathaway) survived an on-stage accident that almost killed her. Rumors swirled that it was no mishap, but a suicide attempt. Running from her fans, her handlers, and her career, Mary shows up at the doorstep of fashion designer Sam Anselm (a tremendous Michaela Coel). The two women were friends, colleagues, and (apparently) lovers. Mary claims the reason for her intrusion is that she wants (nay, NEEDS) Sam to design a dress for her big comeback tour. Mary requires a serious reinvention.

​Still scarred from their relationship’s messy end, Sam is surprisingly inspired by Mary’s turmoil. Perhaps their unexpected reconnection will give Sam her needed closure and Mary a deserved grace.

​Written and directed by David Lowery, “Mother Mary” is an artful, dreamlike stunner that feels guided by the spirit of Ken Russell. The film relies heavily on visual metaphor to tell its story. Cinematographers Andrew Droz Palermo and Rina Yang create striking imagery that is as intense and unnerving as it is dazzling.

​Both Hathaway and Coel match one another beat for beat, solidifying a connection through two powerful portrayals. Mary and Sam (for better or worse) are tethered for eternity. Coel uses her wide eyes to show the pain still simmering within Sam and the unfortunate viciousness born from it, while Hathaway gives a fierce performance.

​Anne Hathaway has rarely been given a role this immersive or transformative. Artistically, emotionally—almost spiritually—Mary is a figure at war with herself, weighed down by doubt and contradiction. With an enhancement from Bina Daigeler’s striking costume design and original songs from Jack Antonoff, Charli XCX, and FKA twigs, Hathaway fully inhabits the spectacle of “Mother Mary” on stage. These sequences are exactly what they need to be—electrifying, communal, almost transcendent bursts of performance. Yet offstage, the contrast is brutal: the glamour dissolves into something rawer, marked by fragility and quiet disintegration. Mary reigns as a queen in performance, only to unravel in private, her ego both armor and undoing. It’s daring, layered work—easily among Hathaway’s finest, and unmistakably awards-caliber.

​“Mother Mary” is a film of intense emotion and creative expression. Lowery has delivered something uniquely original to tell a story of regret, forgiveness, and the crushing weight of fame and expectations.

​This is what modern cinema should be. Anne Hathaway’s second film (coming out on Friday)–David Frankel’s “The Devil Wears Prada 2” is not.

Where the first film was harmless fluff both inside and out, this sequel actually has something important to say about journalism, the moral cost of Private Equity, and integrity within the fashion industry. Unfortunately, director Frankel and screenwriters Aline Brosh McKenna and Lauren Weisberger have no clue how to execute their ideas into a cohesive film.

The 2006 original came at the beginning of the end for print media. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” finds Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) working as a journalist for an employer who is being dissolved after a big company buys it for the sole purpose of restructuring and then selling the magazine to make a larger profit. Of course, Andy heads back to Runway (her job from part one) as a features editor. Runway’s editor-in-chief is still Miranda Priestly (a seemingly bored Meryl Streep), the titular Devil. Priestly is trying to navigate a major public relations crisis regarding a statement that was misconstrued as having her endorse sweatshop labor practices. When Andy returns to Runway, she sees a company teetering on failure while greedy money-men lie in wait to buy up the fledgling business.

There is a small second of humor, as Miranda fails to remember Andy. After all that happened between them in the first film, this is a funny moment, as is Hathaway’s reaction. Sadly, there isn’t a single laugh or real emotion within this ungodly mess of tone and editing.

There could have been something biting in the subplot that finds Andy’s former Runway work rival Emily (a wasted Emily Blunt) working for another company and feeding off her former boss’s current turmoil. Sadly, it is all handled with a dull edge. Blunt is always good and fits comfortably back into the role that made her a star, but the screenplay crafts her into a cardboard almost-villain.

Returning to the role of Nigel, Stanley Tucci is solid. The character was the true standout of the first picture and Tucci does his best to make something of Nigel’s presence in this one. The actor is more subdued here, but (as with all of the returning characters) he isn’t given anything interesting to work with.

Anne Hathaway’s Andy is more world-aware in this one, and her performance is even better this time around. Hathaway has the drive to make the role special, even as the film around her fails.

It’s Meryl Streep who takes the hardest hit here. Even in weaker outings like She-Devil and Death Becomes Her, she’s always brought a kind of total commitment to the role. But as Miranda Bailey, something doesn’t quite land this time. The character is clearly intended to feel worn down, yet Streep comes across more detached than diminished. With a script that leans heavily on familiarity rather than depth, her performance never really finds its footing. And that’s what stings—because when an actor of her caliber seems this disengaged, it doesn’t read as nuance, it reads as absence. Line after line, there’s a lingering sense of obligation rather than inspiration.

Many side characters are added to the mix. A supremely annoying Justin Theroux is overly goofy, and B.J. Novak continues to prove that he can be out-acted by a piece of wood. In a ridiculous display of ineptitude, Miranda throws a party at her home in The Hamptons, and the film populates the guest list with many celebrities, but does nothing with them. Even Donatella Versace has an early cameo that is aggressively awful.

Lucy Liu and Kenneth Branagh make appearances as new characters. Each one has so little screen time, and their roles are so underwritten that I wonder if they both had delinquent mortgages to pay off.

Other side characters are introduced as if to be an intricate part of the movie, only to be shoved aside until needed. Unfortunately, Asian-American actor Helen J. Chin (giving a good performance) falls prey to a grossly designed stereotype that is rather shocking in today’s cultural landscape.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” is unfocused and sloppy. The lofty ideas hinted at in the screenplay are reduced to embarrassing platitudes, making everything so simplistic that the first film plays like an Antonioni film.

While watching this film, the keyword is “desperation.” Every moment is filled with a grasping-for-straws vibe, while the rest is left for “Hey, look, it’s…” scenes. This is a film designed as a cash-in.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” is a mess that insults its strong cast and, most egregiously, the massive fan base that made part one a huge success.