While I normally only write about Oscar related movie news on this site, I feel that I need to write about Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER!, because watching it was such an overwhelming and draining experience that I feel I need a place to process it. And I'll be spilling spoilers because I don't know how the hell else to talk about it!
As of this writing, MOTHER! is tanking at the box office and there's little chance that it will ever earn a profit, even though it's budget is a modest (by Hollywood standards) thirty million dollars. Not even three well known stars (Ed Harris, Michelle Pefiffer and Javier Bardem) and one big star (Jennifer Lawrence) can expand it's audience. Even more amazing, it has the rare distinction of being one of only ten films to get an "F" rating from audience polls. Critics, on the other hand, have been kinder, giving it a healthy 67% on the Tomatometer.
One thing is certain, MOTHER! is one crazy, intense movie that starts off like an queasy thriller and then takes a left turn into the openly surreal, and highly symbolic, until visual metaphor overwhelms the screen. The last half hour of the film can not be taken literally in any way, with one wild and disturbing image following another, their meaning often obscure and vague. Eventually, any kind of conventional linear plotting is almost completely abandoned, until the film ends with one last ambiguous image. None of this is anything the average American moviegoer is interested in; pointing that Aronofsky was clearly influenced by Spanish director Luis Bunuel is not going to move a country mostly bored by foreign films! The ad campaign for the film clearly played down the surreal nature of the film's ending and made it look like it was far more conventional, which may explain the audience's exasperation with it. Its opening seems normal enough at first, with Lawrence's young house wife (no character names are used in the film) married to an older famous poet (Bardem) in a lovely home that she herself rebuilt after the original house, the one that Bardem grew up in, had burned down. Their tranquility is broken when a doctor (Harris) and his wife (Peffifer) come to stay unannounced, with a secret agenda of their own. Somewhat inevitably, they bring violence with them. At first, Laurence's character reminded me of the Natalie Portman character from Aronofsky's 2010 film BLACK SWAN; again, we have a story told from the point of view of a young woman in a stressful situation who veers on the edge of insanity, and for whom reality and fantasy overlap. (I've already mentioned the influence of Bunuel, certainly Roman Polanski's classic horror film ROSEMARY'S BABY is another touchstone for this film). And for a while, Aronofsky sticks to a BLACK SWAN like story, but, slowly but surely, hints are released implying that both Laurence and Bardem are clearly meant to be something other than human.
Aronofsky's has challenged audiences before, especially with 2000's REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, but this is time he seems to have pushed too far, by putting Laurence, one's of Hollywood's most popular and well liked stars, into a grueling role that sees her veer from being humiliated and ignored to being beaten and tortured, often while pregnant. And no matter how surreal and symbolic those torture scenes are, they're still hard to sit through. And what is the only way to test an audience's endurance more than endangering a pregnant woman? That's right, endangering a baby, which Aronosky also promptly does in gut churning fashion.
So just what is the film about? The script was written by Aronosfsky in a mere five days, and he himself has called it a fever dream. And yet, his intentions sometimes are clear; like Bunuel, who's films were often condemned by the Catholic church, Aronofsky's target seems to be religion. The Bardem character is clearly supposed to be God (he even says "I am I" at one point, a direct quote of God from the bible), and he's a selfish and vain one at that; he can't seem to resist opening his home to his adoring followers, even as it becomes dangerously overcrowded. And when those followers start to fight with each other, eventually leading to what appears to be a large bloody war, he does nothing to stop them, just as many religious groups have fought and killed over the "right" way to worship God. Such a depiction of God is not exactly something that a religious country like the US wants to see! Although Aronofsky has been a bit withholding about his own spiritual beliefs, it would seem clear that his Jewish upbringing played a role in his writing a God character that is far more old testament than new.
But what are we to make of the Lawrence character? My gut reaction, once I got over the stunning images I'd just seen, was that she was a damned soul trapped in a hell of her own making (notice that she never leaves the house). But as I thought about it more, I felt that she was more like a modern Virgin Mary, impregnated by God, and then forced to watch her son die horribly and then be eaten like Christ is symbolically ever Sunday. Another interpretation is that she is the literal embodiment of Mother Nature, who's beautiful creation (the house)is slowly destroyed and corrupted, by the ever imposing and growing human race, who even go so far as to kill her newborn baby. (Significantly, Aronofsky is an environmental activist). The fact that such a shocking movie ends with what seems to be an upbeat note, with things reverting to back to normal and the story starting all over again, ties in with the fact that Aronofsky's last film before this was 2014's NOAH, another story of destruction and renewal.
But the most intriguing question about this film is just how it got made in the first place. In an era of remakes, reboots and franchise films, how did a major film studio like Paramount not only green light this film but then also put America's sweetheart in the lead role and give it a wide release in over 2,000 theaters, including multiplexes? I don't know just how, but I'm glad that they did, even though I left the theater shell shocked after viewing it! It's so rare to see a mainstream film that really sticks with you and makes you think about it for days afterward, and kudos to Lawrence for agreeing to star in such an offbeat film (and she really carries the movie, despite all the craziness). So what I'm saying is, if you're not squeamish and are open to an openly surreal style of storytelling, you might want to try this film out. For the rest of you, I'm sure there's a TRANSFORMERS movie playing somewhere.
