Director Bassam Tariq and actor Mahershala Ali deliver a powerful, nuanced performance, blending intense action with themes of faith, grief, and family, in their newest movie “ Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother.” Ali stars as Latif, a devoutly religious hitman who struggles to balance work, faith, and fatherhood. When his wife dies, he embarks on a desperate journey across Houston to protect his children, confronting the forces closing in around him – and the beliefs threatening to unravel within.
In an interview with Ourweekly, Tariq talked about fatherhood, Latif, and the message behind the movie.
“Fatherhood means a few different things to me, and it starts with being present and making mistakes, but not letting those mistakes define me as a person and continue standing up and being present in my family’s lives,” Tariq said. “Being a father is the most humble and hardest thing I have done in my life.” In the movie, one of the layers you see is the struggles and complexities of fatherhood from Latif POV and how those questions guide his path to answers.
Latif, an ex-military hitman who works for security specialist Mike Mahmoudi, finishes a job in St. Louis before receiving a phone call from his daughter Fatiha telling him that Khadijah, his wife and her mother, died suddenly. Latif returns home in Houston for the funeral, reuniting with his family, including Fatiha, his son Qadir, and his infant daughter Aziza. A devout Muslim, Latif experiences a crisis of faith as he mourns his wife and struggles to care for his children.
One of the first struggles Latif faces after losing his wife is finding breast milk for his baby, leading him to ask mothers from the mosque to have a stripper provide Aziza with milk. In the midst, Latif is trying to complete his contract for Mahmoudi while also having to protect Mahmoudi’s son from a Christian extremist after exposing Mahmoudi and his son for partaking in activities that go against Muslim and Christian laws.
“As the movie progresses, you see Latif change and question himself and his beliefs as he is challenged on everything from different parties. He learns to be more flexible as he walks this path of rediscovery and finding balance.” Tariq spoke about obstacles Latif faces throughout the movie. “ He has to learn what compassion is, as he unknowingly is asking it from other people.”
Another plot point is the conflict between Muslim and Christian beliefs; in one scene, they debate who Fatiha was praying to and who Latif was praying to. “I think they both are speaking to the source in that scene, but name-wise, I think you can call the entity what you want,” Tariq said. “I think throughout this movie many people are in conversation with the cosmos in different ways.”
You can see “Your mother, your mother, your mother” in theaters nationwide.
