Review: mother! (2017)

mother! (2017)

Rated R for strong disturbing violent content, some sexuality, nudity and language

Score: 5 out of 5

There were points in mother!, the latest film from Darren Aronofsky, where I felt like I was in a dream. I am not being metaphorical here, even though the film itself is arguably nothing but metaphor. There is an extended scene in this movie that literally felt like one of the more vivid dreams I recall having, right down to some of the more over-the-top things that happened in it. This is a movie where Kristen Wiig, playing the male lead's cheerful and chipper publicist (side note: Kristen Wiig is in this), executes people six at a time like she's working for ISIS or the Sinaloa Cartel, without ever breaking character. That is not the weirdest thing that happens in this movie, not by a long shot. Nor is it a spoiler, because, barring some of the really fucked-up shit that goes down in the third act, telling you about anything that happens here would make zero sense even if I put it into context.

This is not a film that my lucid mind could've come up with. Literally, I've only ever imagined some of the shit in this when I was dreaming. Perhaps that's why I don't recall dreaming as I slept the night after: I'd already spent two hours watching mother!, and the dreaming part of my brain was satisfied.

mother! is a film where, if you go in not knowing what to expect, you're probably gonna hate it. I'm not at all surprised at the polarized reviews that this film received, especially from average moviegoers who went in expecting a fairly conventional psychological thriller from the advertising. This is director Darren Aronofsky, the man who made a blockbuster Biblical epic into a surreal, arguably post-apocalyptic environmental fable, at his Aronofsky-est, the same guy who previously fucked with my mind when he directed the similarly surreal Black Swan. The fact that one of the two main characters is a poet is highly appropriate, as this film feels more like poetry than a conventional narrative with the assorted layers it's working on.

Our protagonists are a poet (Javier Bardem) struggling with writer's block, credited only as Him, and his young wife (Jennifer Lawrence), credited only as Mother, who have just moved into a nice country home that they seek to renovate. One day, a surgeon (Ed Harris) arrives at the house and decides to shack up with them; the man is happy to let him into their home, especially after finding out that he's a fan of his work, while the woman is understandably skeptical. Then the surgeon brings his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer). Then their two bickering sons (Domhnall and Brian Gleeson) arrive, with one accidentally killing the other in an argument over their dying father's will. Then more people arrive, and they just... won't... leave. Oddly enough, the man of the house is cool with all of this, even as they start to tear the house apart while his wife starts to boil over in frustration; after all, they seem to have reignited his creative process. It also doesn't help that, even before these people showed up, the woman has been noticing some very strange things about her new home...

...and then we enter the second act, which is when things go really mad.

I could be here all day recounting the things I saw as this movie went on, but I can sum it up like this: despite what the advertising may have told you, this is not Rosemary's Baby. A few moments may be evocative of that film, true, but otherwise, this is very much its own beast. Any number of ideas can be read into this film, from the suffering women undertake to support their husbands' dreams, to an environmental message about how people take without ever giving back, to a Biblical allegory, to Aronofsky himself commenting on his own creative power. Unfortunately, going into detail requires actually watching the film, and there are moments in this film that I can't bear to give away. I have heard stories of many people walking out of the theater after a certain scene, and even having not had the scene spoiled for me beforehand, I know exactly which one they were talking about now that I've seen this for myself. I'm not one who gets shocked easily, having seen enough horror movies that I thought myself numb to such, and even I thought that some moments in this film were downright harrowing in their brutality. I mean, holy shit.

And it's all put together with outstanding craftsmanship. I mean, it's hard to go wrong in the acting department when your two leads have both been nominated for Academy Awards in the recent past, but Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem are still outstanding here. Any question as to whether Lawrence has just been coasting on her Hunger Games paychecks and her Silver Linings Playbook Oscar are settled by her performance in this film, as she feels like the entire world around her is going completely mad as a bunch of people invade her house and refuse to leave, with her husband seeming to be cool with it all. Bardem, meanwhile, plays his character as an aloof artiste for whom the needs of his wife come second to his art. He may say he loves his wife, and he may even honestly believe it, but he sees her as a means to an end for the creation of his art., an attitude that leads the two of them to terrible ends. While the two of them are the heart and soul of the film, they are surrounded by a slew of character actors in supporting roles, many of which amount to cameos but all of whom turn out memorable moments in the growing debauchery on display inside the house that each add another layer to the film's themes. (For instance, while none of the characters are given proper names, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer's characters could easily be called Adam and Eve given what is implied about them, and their kids, Domhnall and Brian Gleeson's characters, could similarly be called Cain and Abel.)  On the directing front, Aronofsky starts out relying on traditional timeworn supernatural/psychological horror tropes, but very quickly takes things into the realm of the strange, with the fact that the house is seemingly alive (complete with a beating heart) merely the tip of the iceberg. His films have always been known for being "out there", and he goes all-in on that with this one, most notably during an extended scene of utter madness when the film finally drops any and all pretense of being a "normal" movie. While it can never truly be called "grounded", he somehow keeps it all flowing, especially once it becomes clear what metaphors the film's plot is wrapped around.

The Bottom Line

mother! is a film that I am all but demanding you see at least once, even if there's at least a 50/50 chance that you are going to hate it. It is visceral, brutal, bizarre, and unlike anything I've seen in a long time, and I'm honestly not surprised that it bombed; it is not a crowd-pleaser by any sense of the term. It's a movie where I'd tell you to brace yourself, but even that might not be sufficient to prepare you for what you're in for.