mother! review
The first thing to make clear about mother! is that it is in no way or a horror or thriller or really anything that will find weight with mainstream audiences. Darren Aronofsky's latest is the director's strangest and most personal entry to date, and one that might be better off left as a private outlet for his frustrations with humanity.
mother! is about a young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) and an older man (Javier Bardem) living in an isolated country house. He is a struggling writer and she spends her time rebuilding their new home, her being much more content with the simplicity of their life than the man is. This peaceful existence is shattered when two outsiders (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) appear one day, setting up an unsettling scenario that allows the woman to feel unwelcome in her secluded universe.
What follows this relatively straightforward premise is nothing but chaos. The first two/thirds of mother! provide a growing sense of unease. Who are these people showing up at the couple's home? Why do their numbers (and inconsideration) increase with every passing moment? Aronofsky's direction starts to unfold during this suspense, and seemingly hints towards the eventual outcome, but instead goes completely off the rails by the third act.
Even though reality is always askew throughout mother!, the true intentions of the film suddenly begin to suffocate the viewer by the ending, when all basis in realism disappears in favor of absurd indulgence. The film is obvious in its allegory to the state of the world, but the metaphors do not stop there. Aronofsky's usually focused filmmaking is now challenged by this unrestrained freedom of thought, and he is blatantly using mother! as an outlet for a creative meltdown of sorts.
The acting in mother! elevates what could be a disaster into well-produced confusion. Lawrence is giving her best work in years, once again solidifying her faltering quality as a genuine talent. She is pained by the disrespect of her home, but gives off innocence and unrelenting hope that things can return to normal. Bardem is, as always, wonderful as the passively sinister but adoring husband consumed by the attention given by the household intruders. The rest of the cast provides decent support for what ultimately belongs to Lawrence and Bardem.
Darren Aronofsky is one of the better filmmakers in the business right now. Films like Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan were able to transcend the barriers between commercially satisfying and critically acclaimed movies with his uniquely polarizing take on psychological issues. However, it is clear now that his films become extraordinary with structure and restraint. mother! is far too obscure in the way that it seems to be targeting every idea imaginable, meshing his anger at the world with an "Intro to Themes 101" textbook.
mother! is not so much a movie, but a metaphysical exploration put onto screen by Darren Aronofsky. His past films have been just as thought-provoking, but much more literal and focused than mother! ever becomes. His ideas might provoke intelligible meaning for some people, but for viewers like myself, only give the impression of misguided and disappointing garishness.
While mother!'s intrigue is enough to draw audiences in, its inaccessibility and bizarrely executed metaphors will alienate most viewers.
Image by Paramount Pictures
