The film “Motherly” is set in an isolated farmhouse in the woods where Kate, played by Lora Burke, lives with her daughter, Beth, played by Kozma. Within a few days of living there, Kate suspects something sinister is happening around the house, and her motherly instincts are getting tested. The film starts with the opening sequence of a birthday party for a young girl, but she seems unsatisfied with the preparation.
The film was written by Ian Malone and Craig David Wallace and also directed by Wallace. In the story, we get to see that Beth is prohibited from doing what normal kids of her age would have done; her mother is overprotective of her and does not want her to go outside, play hide and seek, or do other ‘usual’ things that a preteen would do. In the course of events, we get to see that Kate’s husband was convicted of murdering a young kid, and Kate has nightmares about it, which has made her overprotective towards her own kid. Kate and her daughter Beth lived in an isolated household under a witness protection program as Kate testified against her husband for murdering the neighbor’s kid. Even though Kate’s husband had declared his innocence, Kate lived under the witness protection program because she was worried that the young girl’s parents would find them and kill Beth in order to avenge their daughter.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Motherly’ Story
The film starts in a desolate farmhouse where a mother and daughter live. Kate tries to celebrate Beth’s birthday with her limited access to the situation, which clearly does not fulfill Bet’s wishes for celebrations. We get to see that Kate allows Beth to play outside the house but warns her not to enter the barn. She then gets on the phone with her publisher, asking for another advance as she is shown to write a book. Within a few minutes into the story, Beth tries to hide herself, Kate loses her mind, and we immediately feel something is wrong with the kid.
The film starts with a sinister effect, and one can easily understand that something is definitely wrong with the whole situation, yet it stays unpredictable. Kate and Beth are kept under the protection of an officer named Hal, played by Paradine; he seems to like the mother-daughter duo and also likes Kate, even though she is married. Hal reaches the household with a gift in his hand for Beth’s birthday, which is immediately crushed by Beth as she does not see herself as a child. Beth comes off as an ungrateful brat who complains about the gift and asks for an iPad from her mother. However, fears about Kate got real, and they were being hunted down by the dead child’s parents. The dead girl’s parents kidnapped Kate and Beth and invaded their home.
When the dead girl’s parents invades Kate’s home, they try to torture Kate to get a confession about what exactly happened to their child. Kate had to go through tremendous torture as the invaders picked the nails out of her fingers in order to get to the truth. While the mother was being tortured, Beth was trying to hide from the dead girl’s father inside the house and tried to contact Hal, the police officer who was in charge of them. Hal came to the house after getting a call from Beth to rescue the duo, and he had suspected that they were under some form of attack. Hal returned only to find out that Kate had been held hostage by the dead girl’s father and that the mother was occupied with Beth inside the house, who kept talking about how she wanted to get back to her father, who was innocent. Hal kills the dead girl’s father in the hostage scenario, and Kate then kills Hal in order to safeguard the secret that she had confessed some moments earlier. At the same moment, Beth and the dead girl’s mother try to hide from Kate to keep themselves safe, but in the end, the twist of the events completely baffles us.
‘Motherly’ Ending Explained – Who Killed The Child?
There are lots of twists and turns of events while the events occur, but in the end, we get to know that it was Beth who had killed the neighbor’s child, and Kate blamed her husband in order to protect Beth. Like any mother, she had done everything to protect her child, even if it meant hiding them out in the middle of nowhere. Kate had to go through a lot of things on her own, including the loss of her husband and the anger of her daughter, yet she kept protecting her till her last breath and appeared to be emotionally exhausted.
The way the story ends is unpredictable, and one could not have anticipated it happening in the beginning. Beth kills her mother in the end as a punishment for framing her father, which is the most shocking event of all. Kate tries to protect Beth from the outside world by keeping her actions a secret from everyone, even confessing to murder, yet Beth kills her mother in the end, as she was called ‘baby’ by Kate affectionately. At the beginning of the film, we learned that Beth hated being considered as a baby and being called that by her own mother. After her mother framed her father who was her favorite, all hell broke loose and she killed Kate.
What Happens To Beth?
While the end credits were rolling, we got to see that Beth was walking down the road with a big knife in her hand covered in blood. She is stopped by a car, and seeing Beth’s condition; the woman goes forward with the car as Beth smiles. Beth is fully aware of the fact that she has become an outcast in society because she likes to kill people without any guilt and thus gets the better of it. Without any family or prospects, Beth goes on with her life.