Mother’s Day? Make it Mothers’ May

You’ve known her your entire life. She birthed you, raised you, fed, clothed, taught and cleaned up after you, even when you let a banana explode in your school bag. From grub phase to gremlin, she cuddled you and scolded you. But as you stare at the Mother’s Day flowers, and bath salts, you might be asking how well you really know her. Is she more of a bathrobe-and-slippers mom, or a true-crime-podcasts-and-bath-wine mom? Perhaps she’s both, and more. 

All mothers contain multitudes. One Mother’s Day could never be enough to thank her, celebrate her, or understand her. So this May, we’re starting you off with 10 titles on screen now, and coming soon, that you can take home to mother. 

1. Never Let Go

Listen to your mom, she just wants you to be safe! Survivalist horror movie Never Let Go stars Halle Berry as Momma, who’s raising her sons Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) and Samuel  (Anthony B Jenkin) alone in a cabin in the woods. She tells the boys that they’re the sole survivors of The Evil, a mysterious force that destroyed humanity. While they can’t see The Evil, Momma sometimes can … and it appears to her in the form of her dead mother. But by the time a hiker strays onto their land, the boys are already asking questions and starting to test Momma’s rules in the face of growing hunger and hardship. Has Momma gone mad, or is the evil of the world really on their doorstep? And when does parenting and protection cross over into stifling and smothering? Welcome to every mom’s tightrope walk!

Stream Never Let Go now.

Also watch: For more mama bears on the attack, watch a mother protecting her daughter during a heist in the movie Locked In. See Queen Latifah bring both motherly warmth and fierceness to her role as ex CIA “fixer” and divorced mom Robyn McCall in The Equalizer Season 1-4. And check your mom’s “crazy” wilderness levels against the Yellowjackets in Season 2-3. 

2. Insomnia Season 1

If Never Let Go whets your appetite for the drama surrounding motherhood, mental illness, and generational trauma, Insomnia’s writer and executive producer, Sarah Pinborough, has a tale for you – based on her 2022 novel of the same name. 

In this British thriller and psychological drama, with Emma’s (Vicky McClure) 40th birthday approaching, she starts struggling with sleep issues. Is it “just” perimenopause knocking, or is it the threat of a sinister family legacy? Good luck to Emma as she tries to find out, because with her triple duties as wife and posh domestic goddess to Robert (Tom Cullen), perfect mom to Will (Smylie Bradwell) and Chloe (India Fowler), and successful career as a lawyer, her own health is at the far back of the queue. But when Emma’s black sheep sister Phoebe (Leanne Best) resurfaces with news that their mom is dying in hospital after spending years in an institution, the threat of insanity and memories of past trauma start to derail Emma’s perfect life, and threaten to infect her own daughter with the family “curse”. 

Also watch: For more pitfalls of motherly perfectionism, watch Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies Season 1-2 and Apples Never Fall Season 1, Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects Season 1, and drama series Mildred Pierce.

3. The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1-6

Margaret Atwood’s tale of the patriarchal dystopia Gilead explores the extremes of men’s desire to control women. In Gilead, an extremist group takes over the United States, strips women of their rights, and forces them into roles as household servants, breeding slaves and trophy wives, using the excuse of religion and a global fertility crisis. In this world, motherhood is perverted by forced birth, and used as a tool to turn women’s compassion and protective instincts into a trap. 

In the sixth and final season, we see how far former Handmaid June (Elisabeth Moss) will go to ensure that her children don’t suffer from Gilead’s perverse rules and violent oppression, while former trophy wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) finds herself, as a new mother, suffering the consequences of the society she helped to create as a hyper conservative “Trad Wife” – never expecting to be impacted herself. Get ready for the mother of all rebellions! 

Binge The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1-6 now. New episodes Wednesdays until 28 May.

Also watch: For more metaphors about the exploitation of mothers (in this case, Mother Earth), watch Darren Aronofsky’s eerie, dreamy film Mother! starring Jennifer Lawrence.

4. Widow Clicquot

Are you ready for a vintage wine mom? This biographical drama, based on the 2008 book The Widow Clicquot by Tilar J Mazzeo, tells the story of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot (Haley Bennett), the woman who founded the Veuve Clicquot champagne empire following the death of her autocratic husband, François (Tom Sturridge), in 1805. And cheers to her! From fighting back takeover attempts from the Moët family, to squashing the sexist assumptions of men like her father-in-law Philippe (Ben Miles) and the law itself, to sneaking around trade embargoes during the Napoleonic wars, this ultimate wine mom rises like a champagne bubble. Sometimes a woman’s love, dedication, struggle, and resilience raises a baby, sometimes it raises a glass. Sometimes, as in Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot’s case, she does both. Chin-chin.

Stream Widow Clicquot from Thursday, 8 May.

Also watch: For more wine moms at work, binge The Real Housewives of New York City Season 15, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 16 from Thursday, 8 May.

5. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

In Bridget Jones’s Baby, a newly pregnant Bridget (Renée Zellweger) had to secretly work out whether lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) or mathematician Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey) was her babydaddy. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy picks up with Bridget, a widow, raising her 10-year-old son Billy (Casper Knopf) and six-year-old daughter Mabel (Mila Jankovic) with the help of her OG gang of friends. As everyone around her insists that Bridget get back to work, and get back in the dating game, Bridget’s unique brand of chaos meets motherhood, office life, and dating apps. 

While some might be pushing for Bridget to take a chance on her younger man Roxster McDuff (Leo Woodall), others will be doodling hearts in their diaries as soon as they see her collide with Billy’s science teacher, Scott Walliker (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Raising kids with your besties, parents still around, and hot men crawling out of the woodwork? If Bridget is actually in a coma, we’re still here for the fantasy. Don’t wake up mommy.

Stream Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy from Monday, 12 May. 

Also watch: Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and Bridget Jones’s Baby, along with the mother of all musical comedies, Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. For the much, much lighter side of competitive motherhood, watch Showmax Original comedy series Tali’s Baby Diary and Tali’s Joburg Diary.

6. Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 1-4

Raising Kanan lays the foundations for how the teenaged Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis) grew up to become James St Patrick’s (Omari Hardwick) wiliest enemy, the older Kanan (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) in Ghost. A cunning and treacherous gang chessmaster, Kanan was the kind of guy who could casually kill his own son, and threaten to throw a baby out a window. He gets that from mama!

Raising Kanan’s real powerhouse is Kanan’s drug queenpin mother, Raquel “Raq” Thomas (Patina Miller). From her 80s power dressing leopard print and black leather wardrobe to her rule over the Thomas family, and her reign over the streets of the Jamaica district in Queens, New York, she’s the queen. People step back when Raq enters a building. Cross her and she’ll stick your dog in a microwave. From his baby days, Raq has taught Kanan how to make his mark on the street, from teaching a bully a lesson with a  sock full of batteries, to how to hold a gun. Raq’s fondest dream was for Kanan to use his considerable brain to rip people off for millions as a CEO, but he’s been desperate to walk in mama’s shoes instead. And no wonder; Raq makes being bad look good.

Binge the second half of Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 4 from Wednesday, 14 May.

7. Apartment 7A

On the fence about motherhood? What if we threw in a luxury apartment, some party drugs and wild dream sequences? Psychological horror film Apartment 7A takes us back to 1960s New York and the eerie Bramford building, which will be familiar to anyone who’s seen Rosemary’s Baby. The film is a direct prequel, even ending with the shocking event that leads to Rosemary and her husband being offered an empty apartment at The Bramford. We meet secret Satanists Minnie Castevet (Dianne Weist) and her husband Roman (Kevin McNally) when they invite ambitious young dancer Terry Gionoffrio (Julia Garner) to move into the vacant apartment they own, after she collapses in front of their building while trying to catch up with Broadway producer Alan Marchand (Jim Sturgess). But the Castevets’ generosity comes with a price: Terry must abandon her dreams and her career for a few months to become mommy to Satan’s spawn, with the Casavets promising to raise the evil baby. Don’t say no to this deal just yet, wait till you see the apartment. Such high ceilings!

Stream Apartment 7A from Thursday, 15 May. 

Also watch: Look out for a fantasy take on four generations of mothers, daughters, and their hidden pasts, in the Peter Pan-inspired movie The Lost Girls.

8. Wicked Little Letters

Is your mom a menace? Sure, you love her, but do you duck for cover when she’s cross at the shops, and do your neighbourhood’s kids live in fear of her tongue? Now imagine if she had to seem like a preacher’s wife every second of the day. Welcome to 1920s Britain and black comedy movie Wicked Little Letters, which was based on a real-life court case known as the Littlehampton libels. 

Neighbourhood newcomer, single mother and Irish immigrant Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) is accused of sending blisteringly obscene letters to the whole neighbourhood, especially her supposed new best friend Edith (Olivia Coleman), the mild mannered spinster next door. When Rose is taken into custody, leaving her partner Bill in charge of her young daughter, though, one person feels a twinge of doubt about her guilt – the area’s only female police officer, Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan). Her investigation slowly sheds light on how unrealistic standards for women’s behaviour are creating a pressure cooker, turning the angel of the house into the equivalent of those modern social media bullies whose “about me” sections always seem to contain bible verses. 

Stream Wicked Little Letters from Thursday, 15 May. 

Also watch: Looking for more sweet-as-cyanide motherhood and performative femininity? Try the thriller Nightmare Pageant Moms.

9. Laugh Africa Presents The Showmax Roast of Helen Zille

Love her or hate her, you can’t ignore her. South African politician Helen Zille has spent a lifetime sharpening her tongue. So the mic is hot when she squares up to co-hosts Tumi Morake and Trevor Gumbi, and Roast panelists Loyiso Gola, Bongani Bingwa, Rian van Heerden, Zwai Bala, JJ Tabane, Mel Viljoen, Coconut Kelz, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Londie London, and Patricia de Lille. 

Perhaps it’s a case of the same critiques from different clowns. Former journalist and anti-apartheid activist Helen never gets a break, whether she’s blundering and thundering on social media, pushing back in parliament, or even at home with her (now grown up) sons, Paul and Thomas Maree. Paul and Thomas admitted in 2015 that their frequent teasing over Helen’s chaotic cooking probably helped her to grow several layers of her thick, criticism-resistant hide.

Stream Laugh Africa Presents The Showmax Roast of Helen Zille from Friday, 16 May. 

10. The Mommy Club Season 1-3

Tradition meets the modern woman, the Porsche meets the glam pram, and the champagne crowd collide with the sippy cup set in this Showmax Original reality series about moms across Africa who’re testing whether you can have it all – the career, the man, the house, the kids, and the most glamorous friends at the poshest parties. From Johannesburg to Durban, Pretoria to Dar es Salaam, come be a fly on the wall as we come face-to-face with the most exclusive moms in the school drop-off queue … and those mommy’s little helpers who make having it all at all possible. If you love mama drama, Sugar & Spice mama Christina Devraj hints, “Watching the show was truly shocking and, frankly, disturbing.” 

Also watch: The Mommy Club: Sugar & Spice, The Mommy Club: Van Die Hoofstad, and The Mommy Club: Tanzania, new episodes Fridays.

Stream all this and more on Showmax now!