Umma Trailer: Mother's Day Is Right Around The Corner
I have bad news and good news. Last week, Sony shuffled around several release dates, moving the Sam Raimi-backed, Beck & Woods-helmed sci-fi thriller "65" back nearly a year to April 14, 2023. The good news is that the Sam Raimi-backed haunting horror film "Umma" is still on its way, and Sony has a fresh trailer ready for your viewing pleasure.
Titled with the familiar Korean term for "mother," "Umma" stars Sandra Oh as Amanda, who lives with her daughter in solitude on a rural America farm until her estranged mother's remains arrive from Korea, putting heavy strain on Amanda's sanity as she fears turning into mom. The movie is written and directed by Iris K. Shim in her feature non-documentary debut. Shim is previously known for "The House of Suh," an account of the story of Andrew and his sister Catherine Suh, who conspired to orchestrate the murder of Robert O'Dubaine; the 2010 documentary interrogates the values and pressures of their Korean immigrant family as they attempted to assimilate. Fivel Stewart, Dermot Mulroney, MeeWha Alana Lee, Tom Yi, and Odeya Rush also star in "Umma," and you can check out the trailer below.
'What kind of daughter abandons her own mother?'
It seems that the questions Shim raises about guilt, innocence, and manipulation in Korean immigrant culture in "The House of Suh" creep into the edges of "Umma." When a courier (Tom Yi) delivers the ashes of Amanda's mother in the trailer and she's not having it, he shames her in a manner that clearly gets under her skin: "What kind of daughter abandons her own mother?" Amanda has avoided brokering any kind of meeting between her daughter and her mother prior to the latter's death, citing "screaming" — though that's surely not the extent of the abuse implied here. There are clear parallels drawn from the jump, with Amanda dropping extra homesteading responsibilities onto her daughter (Fivel Stewart) without consulting her, one of probably many factors that lead to her champing at the bit to move out of the house upon adulthood. "Umma" seems like a welcome addition to the hallowed shelf of recent horror movies which watch women deal with their parental issues, alongside Natalie Erika James' "Relic" and Ari Aster's "Hereditary." And you can never have too much Sandra Oh, who is a great presence in any space. The Canadian actor recently provided voice work for an Oscar nominee, playing Virana in Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon" which is up for Best Animated Feature at this year's 94th Academy Awards.
Sam Raimi and Zainab Azizi of Raimi Productions produce through Starlight Media, with Starlight CEO Peter Luo serving as executive producer and Starlight Media co-financing the film with Sony's Stage 6 Films. Matt Black will executive produce with Catchlight Studios' Jeanette Volturno and Marcei Brown. André Øvredal ("Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark") is also on board as an executive producer, with Eric Charles and Elizabeth Grave overseeing for Stage 6 Films.
"Umma" arrives in theaters on March 18, 2022.