Goodnight Mommy (German: Ich seh, Ich seh, lit. 'I see, I see'[lower-alpha 1]; UK: Goodnight Mummy) is a 2014 Austrian psychological horror film, written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.[5][6][7] The film stars Susanne Wuest and twin actors Elias and Lukas Schwarz, and follows the complex relationship between twin boys and their newly-returned-from-the-hospital mother in a large isolated house. The boys begin to question the woman's identity, believing that she isn't the same person as the one who went to surgery, and therefore wondering if she is their real mother.

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (August 2015) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 10,033 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Ich seh, Ich seh]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Ich seh, Ich seh}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Goodnight Mommy
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Veronika Franz Severin Fiala
Written by	Veronika Franz Severin Fiala
Produced by	Ulrich Seidl
Starring	Susanne Wuest Elias Schwarz Lukas Schwarz
Cinematography	Martin Gschlacht
Edited by	Michael Palm
Music by	Olga Neuwirth
Production company	Ulrich Seidl Film Produktion GmbH
Distributed by	Stadtkino Verleih[1]
Release dates	30 August 2014 (2014-08-30) (Venice) 8 January 2015 (2015-01-08) (Austria)
Running time	100 minutes[2]
Country	Austria
Language	German
Box office	$2.2 million[3]

Goodnight Mommy had its world premiere at the 71st Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2014 and was theatrically released on 5 January 2015, by Stadtkino Verleih. The film grossed $2 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its performances, direction and screenplay. It was selected as the Austrian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[8][9]

An American remake of the film starring Naomi Watts was released on Amazon Prime Video on September 16, 2022.[10]

Plot

After undergoing cosmetic facial surgery, a woman (Susanne Wuest), who was formerly a choir member famous on local television, returns home to her modern, isolated lakeside house and to her nine-year-old identical twin sons, Elias and Lukas (Elias and Lukas Schwarz), who entered the house after playing outside in a cornfield and the nearby lake. Her head is swathed in bandages, with only her eyes and mouth visible. The twins are unnerved by their mother's appearance and are further taken aback when she begins to exhibit strange behavior. She pointedly ignores Lukas and appears to only acknowledge Elias in conversation and meal preparations. Though it is the middle of summer, the mother orders the twins to keep the blinds closed during the day (as recommended by her doctor to avoid sunlight) and not allow any visitors or any animals in the house, imposes a strict rule of silence inside the house (as she’s required to rest after the surgery), and allows them to only play outdoors in the garden. The mother also acts cruelly and lashes out at Elias physically and verbally when he is mischievous or disobedient. The boys comment that this is something their mother would never do.

The twins begin to suspect that beneath her bandages, their mother may not be the same person. These doubts are confirmed when they find an old picture in the photo album that shows the mother with another unknown woman who is wearing identical clothes and shares similar physical traits (it is revealed by the woman that the other woman in the photo is her friend who dresses in the same clothes as her). With the suspicion that the woman residing in their house is an impostor, the twins escape from the house and go to a church in a nearby town, where they try to get help from the priest. The priest drives them home, and is satisfied with the woman's explanation that she is their mother, as well as the separation from her husband, and a tragic accident.

The boys tie the woman to the bed with bandages and tape and refuse to let her go until she tells them where their real mother is. The woman insists that she is their mother, and the twins use a magnifying glass to burn her face to compel her to reveal where their real mother is. They then seal her mouth with tape.

Two employees of the Red Cross arrive to collect donations. Although they initially await the return of the mother, they finally leave the house after receiving a large amount of cash from Elias, which he discreetly stole from his mother's purse. Meanwhile, the woman breaks free from the adhesive tape around her mouth and yells for help, but is too late to attract the attention of the Red Cross employees. The twins seal her lips with super glue, only to realize that she is unable to eat. The twins cut open her lips with a small pair of scissors, slicing her mouth in the process.

As the woman is still bound and trapped, she wets her bed. The twins briefly set her free from her shackles to change the bedding, allowing her to subdue the boys and escape. The twins, however, have set up a booby trap that causes her to fall, knocking her unconscious. The woman wakes glued to the living room floor. Elias starts to burn down the house to pressure her into telling them the truth about their mother. The woman firmly insists that she is the twins' real mother. As Lukas holds a candle to the curtains, Elias asks her to tell him what he is doing, claiming that if she was really their mother, she would know.

Desperate, the woman breaks down and says she will play along with pretending that Lukas is there, revealing that Lukas in fact drowned during the opening sequence of the film. Lukas has been merely a hallucination as a result of dissociative identity disorder and is suffering from Capgras delusion, incapable of accepting his other half's demise. Elias ignores her, allowing Lukas to set fire to the house. The flames spread, presumably killing them both.

As firefighters attempt to put out the fire, the woman, now unharmed and wearing a yellow dress that was previously shown in a happy family photo, leaves the house and walks into the woods. The final shot of the film shows Elias and Lukas walking through the cornfield and emerging to be with their mother, the three of them smiling and embracing, singing Lukas's favorite song.

Cast

• Susanne Wuest as Mother
• Elias Schwarz as Elias
• Lukas Schwarz as Lukas
• Hans Escher as Priester
• Elfriede Schatz as Rotkreuz Sammlerin
• Karl Purker as Rotkreuz Sammler
• Georg Deliovsky as Pizzalieferant
• Christian Steindl as Mesner
• Christian Schatz as Bauer
• Erwin Schmalzbauer as Akkordeongott

Reception

The film generally received positive reviews from critics.[11][12] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 85%, based on 145 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Dark, violent, and drenched in dread, Goodnight Mommy is perfect for extreme horror enthusiasts -- or filmgoers who prefer to watch between splayed fingers."[13] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 81 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[14]

The National Board of Review named Goodnight Mommy one of the Top 5 Foreign Language Films of 2015.[15]

See also

• The Other (1972 film), a psychological thriller with similar themes
• The Good Son (film), a psychological thriller with related themes
• A Tale of Two Sisters, a South Korean psychological horror-drama
• The Uninvited (2009 film), American remake of A Tale of Two Sisters.
• List of submissions to the 88th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Austrian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

References

External links

• Goodnight Mommy at IMDb 
• Goodnight Mommy at AllMovie
• Goodnight Mommy at Box Office Mojo
• Goodnight Mommy at Metacritic
• Goodnight Mommy at Rotten Tomatoes

На других языках

[de] Ich seh Ich seh

[ru] Я вижу, я вижу