The Horror Show
mother!
by Darren Aronofsky
I have always been a fan of Darren Aronofsky’s work. It seems others either love it or hate it, but I have always found myself in the “love it, love it, love it” club since I’ve never been one to listen to critics. However, I treated mother! like I hadn’t treated any other Aronofsky film and I couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason why. I’m a huge Javier Bardem fan and I love Jennifer Lawrence, Ed Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer, so you’d think I’d have rushed to the theater to indulge in the latest from this amazing director. I guess you could say I wasn’t too turned on by the promotional photos I’d seen for the film and all the hype about the film being so “shocking” and people walking out of the theater just wasn’t making me feel like this was one I needed to rush out and watch right away.
I will say I am glad that I didn’t rush out and watch it right away, and I’m also glad that I didn’t watch the film with any preconceived notions of what it was about. In a way I went in blind and I couldn’t be happier that I did. mother! is one of the best films I’ve ever seen.
I’m going to warn you, this review contains mild spoilers, so continue at your own risk. I’m not going to go into specific details regarding the plot because it’s a fun ride to take. However, it’s worth noting that I will reveal what I found to be the true meaning behind the film (as did others from reading reviews both negative and positive).
From the looks of it, according to trailers and promotion, the film seemed like it would be one-part haunted house, one-part home invasion, and two parts people going crazy with cabin fever with inevitable nonsense ensuing. Alas, assumptions like those couldn’t be more wrong. Like I said earlier, I went into this film blind, not knowing a damn thing about it, so every moment of the film was like an adventurous ride of wondering what the hell was going on while saying “this is fucking fantastic.”
We’re treated to a beautiful opening sequence of a burned down house seemingly healing itself and then Jennifer Lawrence wakes in bed upstairs and calls out, confused, “baby?” From here forward it’s evident that Lawrence’s character, “the mother” is absolutely, one hundred percent, in love and dedicated to her husband, only known as The Poet, or for the sake of spoilery bits, Him. It was almost painful to witness her intense domestication as she cooked every meal and cleaned non-stop all the while working endlessly to rebuild his home that had once burned to the ground in a tragedy. The Poet simply wanders around the house, listless, with sad eyes, frustrated by his writer’s block, his inability to create. Despite his wife’s constant attention and devotion, it’s only when unexpected strangers show up fawning all over him that The Poet seems to come to life.
Lawrence delivers a beautiful performance as the mother. She played her part so well and went from loving wife to furious caretaker and back again with flawless execution throughout the film. Bardem is fantastic as always and the chemistry between him and Lawrence was wonderful. I had worried that the age gap would prove to be overwhelmingly creepy or disconnected, but it wasn’t. The supporting cast featuring Harris, Pfeiffer, Jovan Adepo, and others, were all brilliant in their respective parts as well.
A casual viewer who hasn’t really been paying attention will undoubtedly grow increasingly confused and frustrated with mother! However, I found the chaos and confusion to be the perfect touch and only elaborate on a story we all know too well.
The symbolism was spot on and the story that unfolds is as wonderful and horrible as it is confounding and candid. Aronofsky, in my opinion, has delivered the most relevant biblical retelling that I’ve ever experienced. I can’t express how much I adore a great allegory and this was executed so expertly that I can’t imagine finding a better representation of our current world in fiction.
God the Father and Mother Earth, Adam and Eve, Cain and Able… the whole Garden of Eden story unfolded right in front of me with such powerful storytelling that I was hooked from the start. The chaos of The Flood and the promise of a Savior followed by the sacrifice and fanatic religious extremism that tied in with the destruction of our planet was haunting and beautiful. The absence of God that resulted in the mother’s torturous and traumatic experiences that finally led to the end of the world is a story told through imagery that will stay with me for a long time. Let’s also not forget that there are several nods to Freud and the death drive as well as fictional references to Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper.
All in all mother! is a film to be watched more than once to catch all the elaborate details that you may have missed the first time and can definitely be enjoyed on more than one occasion for entertainment alone. It’s a brilliant film under the guise of a horror film, but honestly, the direction we’re headed in reality is quite horrific, and religion and spirituality aside, mother! is a bleak reminder of what we’re doing to our planet on a daily basis.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
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