“YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER” INTERROGATES YOUR FATHER

I’m almost certain that Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is the first action film built around a frantic hunt for breast milk.

To be fair, Latif has bigger problems. He’s a highly skilled assassin—the kind of job where getting home safely is never guaranteed—and he has a complicated relationship with his faith. There are people who want him dead. There are people he’s supposed to make dead. There is, generally speaking, a lot going on. But none of it feels quite as urgent as the fact that his baby is hungry.

That strange collision between the life-or-death and the deeply ordinary is where Your Mother finds its sweet spot. For all the bloodshed, religious extremism, swords, and guns—and there are plenty—the film’s most affecting moments are about the everyday work of keeping a family going. I went in expecting a samurai-sword-slinging revenge thriller starring the man who should’ve been the next Blade. What I got was a film about a man learning, much too late, just how much of his family’s life was being held together by someone else.

I see her everywhere.

It’s not an easy thing, killing people and raising a family. Just ask Tony Soprano. And it’s about to get a lot harder for Latif (Mahershala Definitely-Getting-Nominated-for-an-Oscar Ali). Right after his latest job, he gets the tragic news that his wife, Khadijah, has died. Latif, not exactly the most attentive of dads, is suddenly left to raise his teenage daughter, Fatiha, his preteen son, Qadir, and baby Aziza by himself.

But there's a problem. Baby Aziza can’t digest formula, and when the frozen breast milk Khadijah left behind runs out, Latif and Fatiha are forced into a quixotic scramble across the city to find someone who can feed her.

Latif first turns to the women at his mosque, led by Imam Abdul Malik (Giancarlo Esposito), but there aren’t any nursing mothers available. From there, he’s sent to WIC, where he learns he needs a prescription for donor milk. So he goes to the doctor, gets one, drives all the way back and finds the office closed. Fatiha even gets desperate enough to try stealing another woman’s bag of breast milk.

Through Hatty (Abubakr Ali), the self-proclaimed “king of Habibi porn” and nephew of Latif’s boss, Mike, he finds Fugazi (Tiffany Boone), a breastfeeding sex worker who can finally give Aziza what she needs. Except Fugazi has recently been “liberated” by Pastor Hwan Yoon (John Cho), an Iraq War vet turned cartoonishly over-the-top church leader whose congregation might also be a Christian nationalist militia.

While Fugazi nurses Aziza, Hwan shows up looking for Hatty, who’s currently handcuffed in Latif’s car. Latif refuses to turn him over. Then Fugazi runs off with Aziza, and Latif’s forced to give up Hatty in exchange for his child. Just not before kicking Hwan’s ass.

Latif chases down Fugazi, gets Aziza back, and runs through the woods only to smack into Hatty, still dragging around the car door he was handcuffed to. They reunite with Fatiha and Qadir at Qadir’s favorite lamb chop spot, where the kids have been waiting for their father to break fast.

Hwan finds them there, takes Hatty, and leaves Latif with a warning.

Latif decides it’s time to disappear. He tells the kids they’re going to Mexico and rushes home to pack, only to find Mike’s men searching his apartment complex. A brawl ends with Latif facing Mike, who’s gotten his hands on perhaps the most valuable commodity in this entire movie: the breast milk Fugazi packed for Aziza.

Latif demands it back. Mike tosses it across the room. They both watch it spill onto the floor. And, naturally, Latif stabs him in the stomach. Wouldn’t you?

The family hits the road, but there isn’t enough milk to make it to Mexico. Latif heads back to the mosque for help and walks into a massacre. Nearly everyone’s dead, and the sole survivor tells him the men responsible came looking for him. Latif knows exactly who that means.

He leaves the children with his brother-in-law and heads to Hatty’s tacky mansion for a final showdown with Hwan. What follows is a blur of gunfire, sword fights, and bodies hitting the floor, until Latif takes four bullets clean through and finally goes down.

For a moment, it looks like Hwan has won.

Then Latif hears Fatiha's prayers. He opens his eyes. Gets to his feet. And walks straight out the front door, leaving Hwan and his Christian fanatics staring after him like they’ve just witnessed the second coming of Muslim Jesus.

By the time Latif makes it back to his children, they’ve spent the day reading from the Islamic hadith that gives the movie its title: when the Prophet Muhammad is asked who deserves the greatest respect and care, he answers, “your mother.” Asked who comes next, he says, “your mother.” And again: “your mother.”

Only then does he say, “your father.”

I thought I was your sword. Now I have to fill her shoes.

Ali quite beautifully captures that spirit of the movie’s title: Latif is powered by a contradictory blend of male privilege and humility. Early on, he notices, seemingly for the first time, the little notes Khadijah left all over the house, reminders to herself and the kids about all the tiny things that need to get done. She handled these tasks quietly, and seemingly with ease. Now those things—essentially women’s work—are his responsibility, including sustaining an infant who needs something he literally can’t provide.

Even before Khadijah dies, Latif has arranged his life around some pretty impressive contradictions. He’s a devout Muslim, a father of three, and a contract killer who’s convinced himself that his violence is righteous. He doesn’t kill indiscriminately. He has rules. In his mind, there’s a moral framework separating what he does from ordinary murder.

The people around him are considerably less convinced.

His imam openly challenges the logic Latif has built around his work. His family has lived with the consequences of his absences. And when Khadijah dies while Latif is finishing a job, he comes home to children who need him in ways he’s clearly never had to show up before.

Latif’s quest to find a nursing mother gives Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother a wonderfully peculiar forward momentum while poking holes in the macho stereotypes that usually come with this kind of action movie. Latif is physically imposing. He’s as lethal with a sword as he is with his fists (he refuses to use guns) but put a hungry baby in his arms and this very capable man is suddenly out of his depth.

Ironically, it also recalls Islam’s teaching that true masculinity is reflected through service and sensitivity, not brute force.

And Ali plays both sides. He swaggers through the film always ready for a fight, but there’s another man in there too: gentle, God-fearing, tender. You can see him in Ali’s eyes even when Latif is doing his best tough-guy routine.

Out of necessity, Latif has to make room for his feminine side. Suddenly, he’s both father and mother, and being the latter turns out to be a hell of a lot harder than wielding a sword.

It’s that tenderness that makes Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother stand out from your usual action-movie fare. Turns out, taking care of people is easy. It’s being there for them that’s hard.

You only need to be one thing.

It would be easy for a movie with that title to turn motherhood into something saintly and abstract. Instead, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother makes it stubbornly practical.

After all the sword fights and near-death experiences, the movie keeps coming back to something much simpler:

The baby still has to eat.