Anne Hathaway and FKA twigs power the thunderous Mother Mary soundtrack
anne hathaway is at the center of a new burst of attention around Mother Mary, the David Lowery film that pairs a fictional pop diva with a haunted creative conflict. In the hours after the film’s New York premiere, Lowery, Hathaway, and FKA twigs discussed how the soundtrack, costumes, and performances were built to carry the story. The focus falls on a pop star who is broken in private and commanding in public, with the music doing as much narrative work as the script.
The sound of Mother Mary was built in layers
Lowery said the film began with a broad study of the last 25 years in music, including Taylor Swift, Lorde, and FKA twigs. But as the relationship between Mary, played by Anne Hathaway, and her former best friend and designer Sam Anselm, played by Michaela Coel, took shape, the music shifted toward James Blake and Aldous Harding, whose emotional tone helped define the film’s atmosphere.
That pivot matters because the film is split between two modes: the intimate space of Sam’s atelier, where Mary pleads for a dress that can help her return, and the larger-than-life stage persona of a cult pop figure. Hathaway said she came to the project knowing very little about the songs at first, aside from early demos of “Burial” and “Holy Spirit, ” written by Charli xcx and Jack Antonoff.
anne hathaway, costumes, and the character’s broken center
The costume design was built to show a star in motion, not simply a star in sparkles. Bina Daigeler, who oversaw the costumes, said the challenge was to translate emotion into clothing and to show lost fame in Mother Mary’s earliest scenes. The film uses capes, crystal-encrusted bodysuits, and halo-shaped headpieces to establish a visual language for a performer trying to reclaim identity.
Iris van Herpen said the final red, draped-organza dress represents more than a fashion moment. In her view, the dress expresses transcendence and the possibility of evolving beyond fame and identity, which gives the film’s final turn a spiritual weight. The design process took months, and Lowery had van Herpen in mind from the beginning.
FKA twigs and the soundtrack’s missing and released pieces
FKA twigs contributed a song titled “My Mouth Is Lonely for You, ” which was not kept in the film after being cut during her own Eusexua sessions. She said she liked the lyrics but knew it was not for her, while also sending two songs to Lowery when he asked for more material. One of those tracks was described as more ethereal and was used in the dress scene.
Twigs said she knew she had written “My Mouth Is Lonely for You” for a reason once Lowery said he needed a song, and the broader soundtrack now presents a uniform portrait of a 21st-century pop star with glossy appeal and an avant-garde edge. That balance is part of what gives the project its tension: the character is meant to feel commercially huge but still oddly untouchable.
What the film is revealing now
Early reactions have already divided on the film itself, but the music and performance footage have drawn praise inside the project’s own framing. The creative team appears intent on making the songs, costumes, and character study feel inseparable, even when the story moves between human fragility and pop spectacle.
For Anne Hathaway, the role required finding the vulnerable, pleading side of Mother Mary before the diva fully emerged. For Lowery, the soundtrack and visuals were built to channel the movie’s feeling rather than explain it. The result is a film that treats music, dress, and performance as one emotional system, and that is where anne hathaway leaves the strongest imprint as Mother Mary moves into wider attention.
