Ma mère (My Mother) is a 2004 French erotic drama film directed and written by Christophe Honoré, based on the novel of the same name by Georges Bataille.
17 year old Pierre (Louis Garrel) has recently left a Catholic boarding school to live with his wealthy parents at their villa on the isle of Gran Canaria. Pierre's father dies, leaving his mother Hélène (Isabelle Huppert) to care for him. Hélène reveals to Pierre that she had been unfaithful to her husband many times with his knowledge and feels no shame about it. She then insists that her son accept her promiscuous ways and drags him into them.
Ma mère provides examples of the following tropes:
- Boarding School: Pierre has left a Catholic boarding school sometimes before the film begins.
- Death Seeker: What Hélène turns out to be. She's emotionally detached from just about everything, and by the end she slits her own throat.
- Disappeared Dad: Pierre's father is absent in Southern France at the start of the film, then dies there.
- Downer Ending: Hélène ends up slashing her own throat, and the loss of his mother-just-turned-lover is too much for Pierre to bear.
- Euroshlock: A European (French) film about a troubled late teen's "sex education" that ends in incest with his mother, who also has the occasional poetic/philosophical monologue or dialogue.
- Excrement Statement: Once he's done masturbating over his father's porn magazines, Pierre urinates on them.
- Killed Offscreen: Pierre's father died offscreen, Hélène brings the news of his death to Pierre.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: For Pierre's first time, Réa and him end up having sex in a public place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
- Male Frontal Nudity: Pierre's penis is seen several times. He also goes to a nudist beach, with the expected sights.
- Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration: When Pierre finds his father's Porn Stash, he frantically masturbates to it. He's been established as being quite conflicted earlier due to his religious upbringing.
- Mrs. Robinson: Hélène is middle-aged, and she's overtly promiscuous, preferring young men and women.
- Out with a Bang: Sort of. Hélène slits her own throat while her son masturbates on her at the end.
- Parental Incest: How Pierre's and Hélène's relationship eventually evolves.
- Professional Sex Ed: Réa is tasked to seduce and have sex with Pierre for his first time by his mother.
- Pretty Boy: Pierre is a handsome and delicate young man.
- Porn Stash: Pierre's father had a closet full of pornographic magazines, which Pierre finds.
- Queer Establishing Moment: Hélène kissing Réa reveals that she's also into other women, not just young men.
- Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Pierre's psyche is very much torn between his Catholic Boarding School upbringing and his sexual urges initially.
- Slashed Throat: Hélène slits her own throat at the end.
- Slut-Shaming: Hélène tells her son she doesn't deserve the respect he gives her because she is promiscuous, even calling herself a "whore" like many people call her.
- Soundtrack Dissonance:
- There's some angelic Christian chanting when Réa hangs out with Pierre, seduces him and watches another woman kiss him.
- Hélène's death and its aftermath being set to "Happy Together".
- Troubled Teen: Pierre has some religion-related sexual frustration early on. Then there's his infatuation with his mother eventually...
- Unwanted Spouse: Hélène never loved her husband.