A forgettable intergenerational horror
Umma is a movie about a young woman who moves to Seoul and starts to learn about her Korean heritage. It’s likely that the parallels between Umma and Pixar’s Turning Red will be drawn, as both films explore the challenges of growing up in a foreign culture. However, it’s impossible to say for sure what the film will ultimately mean.
The theme of the novel is the fraught relationship between mother and daughter. The novel is focused on the relationship between mother and daughter, but it is also focused on the relationship between father and daughter.
The film, Umma, is about a mother and daughter relationship. The title of the film has already been taken by another 2017 movie, Mother. Umma is not polarizing, but it’s also not very good either. ..
When Amanda’s daughter is diagnosed with leukemia, she decides to take a trip to Korea to visit her mother. She is shocked by the parallels between her life and her mother’s: both women were raised in poverty, both had to work hard for everything they have, and both are deeply haunted by their past. Amanda finds comfort in her daughter’s illness and in the knowledge that she will one day be able to see her mother again.
But on closer inspection, the film feels like it’s missing something. There’s not enough action, there’s not enough suspense. The story feels too simple and the characters are too one-dimensional. It could be a great movie if it had more to offer, but instead it just feels like a forgettable effort.
The film spends a lot of time exploring its themes, but it doesn’t do a great job of leaving behind any scares. This is supposed to be a horror movie, and it should be able to provide some good scares.
Umma is a slow-burner that relies on jump scares and fake-outs to keep the audience engaged, but these tactics are not well executed and even the few scares that do appear feel tired and clichéd. ..
The film’s biggest issue is its lack of development. The antagonistic threat is introduced early on, but the plot never really takes off. The resolution is also a bit too tidy, without much in the way of conflict.
The 80 minutes of “Hereditary” are not really an earned break from the horror, given that there is not really any horror that materializes across the 80 minutes. ..
Despite its quick run time and super simple story, Umma is not a film you’ll remember for long. It’s a movie that wastes potential and ultimately fizzes out into a forgettable intergenerational horror.
