The Torturned Seamstresses Department: "Mother Mary," reviewed.

Michaela Coel is working with phantom thread in Mother Mary. (Frederic Batier / A24)

It wouldn’t be right to say Coel acts rings around Hathaway in the title role, but their dynamic certainly leaves no question about which performer’s career is on the ascent. Coel is just as compelling holding her own against Ian McKellen in “The Christophers,” a contemporaneous release where she plays a similar part: an assistant/creative partner to an artist who has fallen on hard times. But “Mother Mary” reverses the polarity of that film: Here, she’s the one who gets most of the big speeches, while Hathaway’s performance consists largely of nonverbal reactions and then line readings choked out through tears. She’s always been one of cinema’s great cryers.

My Washington City Paper review of David Lowery’s Mother Mary is here.