TWO WOMEN VS A MASS KILLER : "MARY AND MARTHA"

It’s funny, do you ever get the feeling some films actively WANT you to watch them? I’m not talking about advertising or some such, I mean some films (or it could be books or anything else I suppose) that just keep popping out at you at odd places? Take this one. I barely noticed and acknowledged its existence at first. It elbowed its way into my line of vision. I commended its activism but thought I would find it too sad and possibly a tiny bit saccharine to my taste, so I passed. Much like the characters in the film however, the film WOULD NOT go away. It was not being “pushed” per se, but in every random collection of films my eye spied, there it would be. I mean, in the end I just gave up, pure and simple. And I “bought” what it was saying, as it were.  I know, there are many, many terrible things in the world. Malaria is only one of them. And while we cannot hope to solve “everything”, why not try and do something about malaria, which is preventable. In our lifetime. And thus save millions of lives. I mean, you have to admit, it’s a pretty cool idea…

Mary and Martha is the story of two mothers. But the story doesn’t start with them. It starts with George and Ben. Their sons. On the surface of it, the two could not be further apart. Ben, Martha’s son, from the UK, is 24 years old and is working as a volunteer teacher in an orphanage in Mozambique. George, the son of Mary, is only 12, he is on an extended “road trip” with his mother, Mary, who has taken him out of school to home school him and show him the real world. Mary and Martha’s worlds collide through tragedy: both their sons fall victim to malaria, and die. Coincidence brings them together, and their unspeakable shared suffering makes them friends. Their coping mechanisms are different – but parallel: both feel the need to “do” something. They are unable to go back to their old lives and their old homes. Martha chooses to stay on at the orphanage to “replace” Ben for a while looking after the children. Mary heads back home. But she is a woman on a mission. She is going to do whatever it takes to eradicate this disease that took her son. And she plans to start with a letter to the White House.

It would be wonderful if Mary and Martha were a true story.  I don’t of course mean that it would be great for two young men to die. My point is that many, many more than two already are dying. It would be great if we really could eradicate this disease completely. What the film basically does is show us exactly what malaria does. It brings pain and suffering. And not just to its victims. To millions more people, the families of the victims. Through Mary and Martha, we take a good, hard look at one of the greatest pains in this world, the pain of losing a child. We can then imagine this pain multiplied to an entire continent, millions of people. Then, maybe, we can understand what is truly at stake here and start doing something to stop it.

And if you are a bit concerned, like me at the beginning, that this will turn out to be little more than a very thinly veiled anti-malaria campaign, well, you’re wrong. I mean yes, the film makes no pretences about what it is trying to say, but the presentation is good. Hilary Swank is on top form as Mary, and double Oscar® nominee Brenda Blethin is an absolutely adorable Martha. It’s a good film. And if it makes you feel bad, you know what, possibly, all the better. Who knows, you might be the person to actually end up killing this disease off… Now wouldn’t that be something…