Dutch director van Heugten demonstrates here that you can understand a protagonist without necessarily liking them. Both Abbey and Jeremy are fundamentally broken people, still in their own way trying to protect Emine from being hurt in the same way by keeping her away from the bad dad she can’t remember.
My personal thoughts on MASCOT: Full disclosure is that I am working on the PR for the film, so I am obviously a fan of it. And the thing that I am most a fan of, is that while it follows a long tradition of European films that have dealt with hooligan culture and toxic masculinity (before that term had been coined), MASCOT is a rarity in the unflinching manner in which it delves into the environment that created that bubbling inner turmoil and rage in one young man. Specifically, this film looks into the relationship with the boy’s mother, misguided, mistargeted and unintentionally incredibly damaging. It gives the film an additional layer and element that adds to the building dread and threat of the young man potentially losing his hold on his emotions
