Mouse is a lovingly grounded coming-of-age drama in the vein of Lady Bird
Mouse. // Courtesy IFC
Sometimes you watch a movie with details so authentic you know they come from a place of personal experience. That statement accurately describes all of Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s films together, but none more so than their latest, Mouse, a coming-of-age drama with such emotional honesty it’s like you could reach out and touch the characters.
Set in 2002 in North Little Rock, AR—where O’Sullivan grew up—Mouse follows Minnie (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), the shy best friend of outgoing, popular Callie (Chloe Coleman). They complement each other; Callie anchors the school newscast, while Minnie stands behind the camera directing. During group sleepovers at Callie’s house, they share Callie’s bedroom while the other girls sleep in the den.
When a sudden accident takes Callie out of Minnie’s life, Minnie must figure out who she is without her best friend. In her grief, Minnie finds herself drawn to Callie’s mom, Helen (Sophie Okonedo), who’s navigating her own grief as well as the end of her marriage. Their friendship, and a sudden connection between Minnie and bubbly video store clerk Kat (Iman Vellani) ramp up the already growing tension between Minnie and her messy but well-meaning mom Barbara (Tara Mallen).
Mouse is relatable in the way Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird is relatable—if you experienced the early ’00s, you’ve surely seen houses, classrooms, and churches like the ones Minnie and her friends walk through. A funeral scene early on features an awkward PowerPoint slideshow and cringey performative grief so accurate it triggered a sense memory for me. Minnie and Callie belt along with Michelle Branch’s All You Wanted in the car on the way to school. Homecoming dancers get down in the gym to Eve’s Who’s That Girl.
Beyond an exercise in nostalgia, Mouse is a movie about mothers, daughters, and the increasing gap of unknowability between them that starts with the onset of puberty. Minnie looks to the put-together Helen as the mom she wishes she had. Helen, in turn, guiltily wishes Callie had some of Minnie’s capacity for self-reflection. Okonedo is heartbreaking here as a bright, talented woman who gave her whole self to motherhood and isn’t sure what to do with herself now that she no longer has that identity.
The connection between Minnie and Barbara is a fascinating study in differences and similarities, highlighted by Mallen and Mallen Kupferer’s real life mother-daughter relationship (the resemblance and shared intensity are both striking). Mallen’s Barbara is loud and tactlessly honest, the kind of person who says the wrong thing without realizing it, but doesn’t know how to correct it, only that she’s made a mistake. Mallen Kupferer’s Minnie, by contrast, keeps her feelings inside until she can’t tamp them down anymore. She may be embarrassed by her mom’s impulsiveness, but their shared traits are undeniable in the moments she lets loose.
Like Ghostlight before it, Thompson and O’Sullivan’s Mouse is an emotionally generous exploration of fraught, tender experiences treated with impressive care. Its transformational moments are lovingly awkward, its conflicts appreciably complex. Thompson and O’Sullivan are excellent at trusting their actors to get to the right emotional place, and the result is exquisite.
