One thing that “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” captures beautifully is the bizarre contradictions of contemporary America. Director Bassam Tariq’s second feature takes place in a multicultural working-class neighborhood of Houston, Texas, a landscape that’s dotted with check cashing places and strip clubs that have been converted into churches. Here, Mormons, Muslims, and evangelical Christians live and work in close proximity to one another. And the cultural cross-pollination produces some interesting people, to be sure. But what really drives a messy, paradoxical world like the one Tariq creates here is combining religious fervor with the worship of guns and money.
It’s especially stressful being a parent under these circumstances, and trying to protect your children from the world while still engaging with it enough to provide for their needs. This is the dilemma faced by recent widower Latif (Mahershala Ali), who’s struggling to keep his three kids — teenage Fatiha (Adia), 10-year-old Qadir (Jahleel Kamara), and infant Aziza — safe, not only from the moral lawlessness that surrounds them but also from his own decisions. Latif is a devout Muslim, and the local mosque, run by the compassionate Abdul Malik (Giancarlo Esposito), has been a crucial source of support since the death of Latif’s wife Khadijah (Shakirah DeMesier). But his piousness also hides a shocking truth: Latif kills people for money. And he’s good at it.
The movie opens with a gritty brawl in a dingy basement bathroom, the handheld camera pushing in close as Ali grapples with his opponent, pins him to the ground, and plunges a long knife through his chest. He stands up, cleans the blade with a wipe from his daughter’s diaper bag, and walks out, leaving the body behind. The scene sets the tone for the film, but it’s not typical of what follows: Aside from a handful of hand-to-hand combat scenes where Ali spins and kicks and generally proves that he would have been an incredible Blade, Tariq is more interested in the conflicted hitman’s internal struggles than his external ones.
In fact, although Latif’s reluctance to accept a particularly noxious job offered to him by “head of security” Mike Mahmoudi (Laith Nakli) drives the film’s action-oriented second half, the first half is much richer in terms of character. Baby Aziza can’t digest formula, and when the stores of frozen breast milk Khadijah left behind have run out, Latif and Fatiha are forced to go on a quixotic scramble across the city to find someone who can feed her. His inability to meet his child’s most basic needs shakes Latif, whose self-image — and his justification for his line of work — revolve around himself as a provider. And the only way he knows how to restore order is through violence.
As it turns out, the only person in Latif’s orbit who happens to be lactating is sex worker Fugazi (Tiffany Boone), a former employee of obnoxious porn kingpin (and Mike’s nephew) Haddy (Abubakr Ali). Haddy, whose site offers “halal-certified jizz” to lonely Muslim men, is one colorful example of the eccentric characters who populate American life. Another is Pastor Hwan Yoon (John Cho), the unhinged head of a gun-worshipping charismatic Christian church. With his cowboy hat, airbrushed denim jacket, and grills dotted with diamonds, Pastor Yoon and his AR-15 obsessed followers are like something out of a comic book. And if they didn’t have a real-life analogue in the pro-Trump Rod of Iron Ministries, they would be too outrageous to believe.
This points to a core tension of “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.” Although it’s framed as a serious-minded film about faith and family — it’s certainly shot like one, with its realistic locations and grainy cinematography — it’s also full of unexpected detours (in one scene, Latif catches Fatiha watching furry erotica, and takes her laptop away) and edgy humor. These can only work amid the escalating life-and-death stakes if the characters feel that their world no longer makes sense — which, to be fair, is what’s driving Latif’s crisis of faith.
Unfortunately, some promising themes, particularly those pitting individual moral codes against the dogma of organized religion, get lost in the chaos as the emphasis shifts to over-the-top side characters and bloody set pieces later on in the film. But Ali’s steady, stoic performance, as well as Adia’s genuine vulnerability and angst as her character tries to navigate both the death of her mother and new revelations about her father, help ground this unusual blend of tones and genres in some kind of emotional truth. By the end, only the family remains. In an ambiguous and confusing world, that, at least, makes sense.
Grade: B
“Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. Amazon MGM Studios will release it in theaters on Friday, September 25.
