It’s official. The new movie The Mother from real-life mother Jennifer Lopez about being a mother, which released on Mother’s Day, is a hit. The new movie, which premiered on Netflix, drew in almost 3 million viewers.
According to viewer data shared by Deadline, 2.8 million households at least started watching the movie. It was a big hit with non-white households as well, per the data; 33% of households that watched the movie were Black, and 25% were from Hispanic households.
The movie beat out two other popular movies on the service: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and Murder Mystery 2. However, the bigger mystery might be where it will fall on Netflix’s charts, which haven’t been released yet (that happens tomorrow). There’s also a caveat: the Samba ratings don’t include mobile viewing.
Those expecting a fun Hallmark movie about the importance of parenting and motherhood were treated to something pretty different, a bloody gorefest revenge thriller. Lopez plays a former special forces sniper who informed on some bad guys to the FBI.
Reviews are not great. The movie sits at a paltry 46% on Rotten Tomatoes, and while some praise Lopez’s performance, they pan the movie itself. Variety said The Mother is “watchable product, but Lopez proves that she can rousingly carry a picture like this one.” Hmm. “Watchable.” That’s a nice way of saying boring, I think.
The review also called it a “down-and-dirty, grimly overwrought, execute-now-and-ask-questions-later B-movie.”
Brian Lowry over at CNN said the movie feels like a Frankenstein that’s “stitched together from genre clichés.” Yikes. Nevertheless, The Mother is streaming on Netflix.