This is the kill zone. Treat this as you would Basra, Brega, or Damascus. Treat her as you would a hundred snipers. I'm the one who kills her, and I kill her close.Adrian ordering his men to begin hunting down the Mother.
Adrian Lovell is one of the main antagonists (alongside Hector Alvarez) in the 2023 Netflix action film The Mother.
He is a former SAS military agent and one of the former lovers of the Mother, which between either him or Alvarez is implied to be Zoe's father.
He was portrayed by Joseph Fiennes, who also played Timothy Howard from American Horror Story: Asylum, King Eurystheus from Hercules, and Fred Waterford from The Handmaid's Tale.
Personality
Adrian is a sophisticated and cold-hearted individual. Introduced seemingly philosophical about war and the needs between commoners and powerful people, Adrian suits himself as someone who offers to his own benefit rather than the good of others' needs. He is shown to be sharp with precision as he is a capable fighter and acts as a confident leader, though he isn't above having his men die fighting and to his expense, see them as expendable. He completely lacks any sincerity over the fact he has helped Hector in trafficking children and the moment he saw the Mother pregnant, proceeds to stab her belly (which Zoe could've potentially be his daughter) out of spite.
Despite this, he's shown a moment of clarity knowing how much Zoe has grown and sees potential in her, however, any paternal love he would've had for Zoe is conditional and still shows no bounds aiming at her gunpoint.
Biography
Adrian was originally an military official for the SAS, tasked with training a team of snipers back at Afghanistan, one of the members being the Mother. He would eventually take interest in her skills during their training session, taking her on his wing. During a conversation, Adrian brings up how war creates chaos, suffering, and people who are in need of supplies, claiming he's a man who could obtain such things, much to the Mother questioning on what side for. Adrian responds that there are some things powerful people couldn't obtain, which he invites her to a small tent where he was harboring weapons and guns of all types to an Afghan soldier, the mother eventually declined the offer. At one point, he met Hector Alvarez thanks to the Mother and the two became partners in the arms dealing business, combining their resources, as well as having a three-way relationship with the Mother.
At a party, Adrian is seen with the Mother regarding the business with Hector and proceed to dance with her when she asked if he was any better than Hector. Later on, Adrian and Hector would begin to raise up their business the moment their clients demanded more, "something extra", which the former had connections with powerful people he was friends with and got the capacity to include trafficking children to their clients, heavily indicated to be sold as sex slaves. The Mother would be concerned over this and head down to a harbor where she discovered a cargo full of children, throwing up in disgust upon realizing the horrors and immediately decided to turn herself in to the CIA to expose Adrian and Hector's crimes. Prior to that, the Mother was impregnated with either he's or Hector's child. Then at some point, Adrian was under surveillance for awhile while Hector stayed in Cuba, gaining full awareness of the Mother's betrayal and decided to settle matters respectively.
On the day the Mother sold them out to CIA agents, Adrian would raid the house where the interrogation took place, starting to shoot and kill most of the agents (with William Cruise being the sole survivor) as the Mother defends herself fighting against him. Cornering her in a bathroom as she prepared to set an explosive trap, Adrian would unveil the curtains, only to get shot and would discover the Mother's pregnancy. Stunned at the moment, Adrian pulls out a knife and guts the Mother's pregnant belly, hoping it would kill the child before the explosive sets off, which Adrian is later caught on fire and presumed dead for a moment. After the Mother gave birth to her daughter, Zoe, it is revealed Adrian's body was nowhere found and later revealed he survived the incident but at the cost of having burnt scars over his face. Due to the threat he and Hector posed, the Mother was left with no choice but to give up Zoe, not without handling Cruise the task of having her be adopted to a loving family.
In the following years, Adrian got intel of Zoe's whereabouts thanks to Hector at some point. After Adrian's death at the hands of the Mother, she had Cruise prepare to take Zoe home until the moment hit, which Adrian and his crew ambushed their ride. Adrian as his men take Cruise out the car before he comes out in person, seeing Zoe for the first time as he holds her face for a moment, smiling deviously as he wipes her nosebleed, questioning the whereabouts of her mother. As the Mother arrives to stop them, Adrian has Cruise at gunpoint and demanded she lowered hers, questioning if she knew him. He starts to wonder if Cruise was part of either child welfare or social services, noticing the gun holster, and instead, shoots Cruise dead in front of a grieving Zoe. The Mother, on the other hand, throws her lighter into Cruise's car when it leaked gas, causing an explosion as it allowed her and Zoe time to make a getaway while Adrian and his men retreated for now.
For the last two months of the Mother and Zoe living in Alaska, Adrian would eventually pick up their location via hospital records when Zoe got bit by wolf cubs. Following preparations, Adrian would be accompanied by a platoon of mercenaries like himself, driven in four trucks, as they rode to the very cabin where the Mother lived. Adrian's men would be sent to hunt down the Mother via skimobiles with Adrian himself watching over the whole fight, telling them to treat it as a war zone back in several countries while treating the Mother as if she was a hundred snipers after them. To his surprise, the Mother came well-prepared on setting mines all over the snowing forest, warning them as they proceed. As her men are killed at the hands of the Mother, Adrian straps a bomb on his skimobile and has it explode, destroying the Mother's cabin as a message to her, believing Zoe was in there. Once it was confirmed Zoe was driving by truck to her mother, Adrian orders his men to capture her as soon as he catches up. One of his men eventually captured her until the Mother shot him, rescuing Zoe as she and the Mother are then chased after the remains of Adrian's crew, killing them as well.
Making their way to the Mother's usual training area, Adrian taunts the Mother via radio transceiver where he has Zoe at gunpoint, saying she has "potential", demanding her to meet him in person or he'll "destroy that potential". The Mother complies with his demands as she lets down her guns when Adrian had her at gunpoint, then brings up she burned down their partnership for Zoe's sake, which he could only smile with sinister intent hearing her response. The Mother and Adrian would engage in a fist fight, pummeling one another as the Mother seemed to have the upper hand at first, while Zoe tries to use her sniper to shoot down Adrian. As Adrian was pierced by the face through the Mother's knife, he proceeds to taunt how Zoe will miss the shot if it results in both her and himself killed together spitefully, wondering if she taught her everything she knew and dared Zoe to take the shot. As soon as Zoe comes down to check on her mother after sniping, Adrian swoops her from behind and takes her back into his van.
Preparing to leave as he abducts her, the Mother awakens and took notice, trying desperately to use the last of her sniper's munition to take out Adrian. After failing to miss the first shot, she tries to again for a second time, believing at first she failed and spiraled into despair. Fortunately, its revealed she indeed successfully sniped Adrian and prevented him from taking Zoe away from her as the two happily reunite afterward.
External Links
- Adrian Lovell on the Pure Evil Wiki