By Brett Blake Make no mistake, MOTHER! is the work of an artist with a forceful point of view. It’s a paradoxical film, one that is fascinating, dense, and shocking, just as it’s also pretentious, repetitive, and unforgivably heavy-handed. It’s a movie that manages to bludgeon its audience in the face with its various complex metaphors and also render its ultimate thesis statement rather simplistic and obvious. MOTHER! is undeniably potent, powerful cinema, but it may be too much for most to take. The plot (such as it is), concerns the unnamed wife (Jennifer Lawrence) of an unnamed author (Javier Bardem) who is working on restoring his childhood home while he fights writer’s block. One night, a man (Ed Harris) arrives under rather mysterious circumstances, an event which sets off a host of increasingly bizarre arrivals which threaten to push the wife to a breaking point. That’s pretty much all that can be said without getting into spoilery specifics, and I’ll respect the film by not going further. Also, to go further would require actually attempting to describe the special breed of crazy that this movie becomes, and my skills as a writer probably aren’t up to that task! Before getting at all deeper into MOTHER!, it’s worth saying right here that the performances are tremendous. A good amount of the movie is spent looking at Jennifer Lawrence’s face, but she’s more than capable of carrying that off effectively, and she sells her character’s traumatic journey well. Javier Bardem is effortlessly convincing and grounded… until the screenplay requires him to no longer be that way (a turn he navigates with ease). Ed Harris does some surprisingly affecting and emotional work, and Michelle Pfeiffer (playing Harris’ wife) is probably the scene-stealer of the whole movie, a passive-aggressive, nosy piece of work whose probing presence really kicks off the first alarm bells for Lawrence’s character. It can’t be denied by anyone with functioning eyes that the filmmaking here is incredibly strong. Shots are beautifully composed and the editing is some of the best of the year. Aronofsky stages some impressive, tension-filled sequences, and he puts bizarre and uncomfortable imagery on the screen in an almost casual way that is really effective. He instills the movie with an extreme, intense feeling of unease, and he puts us right into Jennifer Lawrence’s increasingly paranoid headspace. However, the movie is ultimately a story enslaved to its themes and allegories, rather than a symbiotic marriage of story and theme. It’s clear Aronofsky was not interesting in presenting a conventional or satisfying narrative. Not much in the movie is meant to be taken literally, and certainly the final third becomes almost explicitly allegorical and, therefore, not literal (the goings-on eventually become far too preposterous in their aggressive strangeness for that). Where the movie frustrates is in its balance (or lack thereof) of narrative and theme. Aronofsky here seems only interested in plot insofar as it allows him to depict his various allegories visually. Contrast that with, say, his own BLACK SWAN from 2010, which is a film that seamlessly operates both as a satisfying psychological thriller and a thematically rich piece which tackles various issues of some depth. It’s the total package, as it gives genre fans things they can appreciate, while also working as an artistic statement. MOTHER! is just the artistic statement, and will likely not satisfy anybody on any story level; its only real pleasures are found in the quality of the filmmaking itself and the unraveling and decoding of its metaphorical aims. For some people, that will be enough. For others, it will be monstrously frustrating. I tend to be more in the latter camp. It crams in so many thematic ideas and metaphors that the movie ends up feeling overstuffed and unfocused. Aronofsky is clearly upset by a whole host of issues, but rather than finding a way to streamline his concerns into one throughline, he gives representation to them all in various ways. This leaves the audience with lots to chew on and engage with (which is admirable), but it also doesn’t result in a movie that feels fulfilling in any meaningful way. There’s stuff in here about the act of creation, what it means to be an artist, celebrity, the media, social norms, societal order, and - most importantly - religion, which is the ultimate prism that Aronofsky seems interesting in peering through. When you really boil down the central point that Aronofsky is trying to make, you’re left with a message of the most downbeat sort. This is an incredibly defeatist and angry movie, one which uses its bizarre and horrific beats to rail against everything that Aronofsky seems to think is wrong with the world and - ultimately - wrong with humanity. Had this film been a thoughtful examination of the human condition, he could get away with such a dour final statement, but it’s not really that; it’s a wild and crazy grotesquerie that trades in complicated and elaborate metaphors, yes, but leaves little room for subtlety or nuance. The final half hour is packed with some of the most unhinged visual insanity I’ve ever seen in a mainstream release from a major studio. The imagery is potent and truly shocking in ways that will leave many people openly disgusted. Surreal, nightmarish visions are splashed across the screen in gruesome detail, and the actions of various characters are nothing less than maddening. And at the end, we’re mostly just left with an incredible display of misanthropy on the part of the director. I recognize this review has not delved into what the movie is actually about, and that’s because it’s almost impossible to do so without spoiling things. Whatever else can be said about MOTHER!, it’s a singular vision courtesy of one of the most interesting filmmakers working today, and 2017 is a richer cinematic year for its inclusion. It’s a risky, ballsy film, and Aronofsky deserves credit for pushing through despite obviously knowing a lot of people would be extremely put-off by it. Those with adventurous film palates will likely be rewarded for giving it a look. If you’re at all on the fence about it, however, think twice before diving in, and prepare to be challenged (both by its themes and its lack of a conventionally satisfying story) and to be made deeply uncomfortable if you do.
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By Brett Blake No movie is perfect, and if somebody wants to nitpick IT to death, there’s probably plenty of material for them to find. I’m not particularly interested in doing that at this moment, because I found IT to be a high-quality, high-energy funhouse ride. It’s intense, funny, exciting, engaging, and even thoughtful, and the movie hits the exact right notes required to make all of that work. It leaves the (enjoyable) 1990 miniseries in the dust, and presents a pretty definitive-in-spirit adaptation of (one half of) Stephen King’s seminal novel. Set in primarily in the summer of 1989, IT follows a group of seven kids, each of whom is an outcast in some way: Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), Stan (Wyatt Oleff), Beverly (Sophia Lillis), Mike (Chosen Jacobs), Richie (Finn Wolfhard), and Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor). When a number of children - including Bill’s younger brother, Georgie - go missing, this group of seven (who call themselves the Losers Club) begin to find themselves pursued by a monstrous entity, an entity which often takes the form of a demented, murderous clown called Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard). With the adults in town unwilling or unable to help, the Losers take it upon themselves to try to stop this creature before it kills them. A huge amount of the success of this iteration of the IT story can be attributed to the direction from Andy Muschietti and the screenplay from Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman. King’s novel follows an intertwined dual narrative of the characters as kids and the characters as adults (two separate time periods moving forward simultaneously). This adaptation concerns itself only with the kids half of the story (and to be fair, it’s not 100% faithful, but it gets the spirit of its source very right), which proves to be an excellent decision. By drilling in on that, the film is able to be both a horror tale and a hugely entertaining “coming of age” adventure. At times, particularly in the first half, the script is a bit episodic, but this is both by design and necessary: we are given time to get to know all seven of the Losers, and we also get to see how they slowly become aware of the dangerous menace stalking their town. Though episodic, many of these episodes are tremendously effective mini scare setpieces, all of which are crafted and executed at quite a high level. There is a ferocity to the horror elements and particularly the violence that is off-putting in the very best way. Within the first five minutes, the movie makes it very clear that it has no compunction about subjecting children to graphic violence, and that’s absolutely vital in order to sell the nature of the dangerous situation in which our protagonists find themselves. Muschietti doesn’t get at all gratuitous with the gore, but he gives it a tremendous edge that could very well shock some viewers (appropriately so). His staging of the the biggest sequences - one in a rickety old house, the other in the town’s sprawling sewer system - is first rate; he leans on (fun, not cheap) jump scares where appropriate, but more than that, he allows the technical categories (the cinematography, production design, sound design, and music, in particular) to set an uneasy atmosphere, and he isn’t afraid to linger on bizarre or upsetting imagery. The Losers, as realized by their seven young performers, are absolutely wonderful. Their work gives the story an emotional resonance and a beating heart which make it easy to care about them, especially in the face of the vile evil that is hunting them. With seven cast members, it’s hard to do them all justice in the limited space of a review, but suffice it to say they’re all very strong. Their bonds, their camaraderie, and even their flaws are well etched by the actors, and the highest compliment that can be paid to them is that a straight comedic-drama (because these kids are often incredibly funny) featuring them would likely be just as compelling without the extra horror goodness and associated trappings. It is vital to the story that we buy that this is a special friendship shared by these seven young people, and the movie nails that. As fantastic as the kids are, ultimately any adaptation of Stephen King’s novel will live or die at the hands of its Pennywise. You have to completely buy the threat posed by him, it’s the one element you simply cannot afford to have go awry, and in Bill Skarsgard, this film has found a terrific new interpretation. Now, it’s unfair to compare too much to the 1990 miniseries version of IT, but it’s an easy point of reference to help put what Skarsgard is up to here into some context. In that version, Tim Curry’s Pennywise character behaved in a way that might allow you to believe this clown was just an insane circus performer. Mad and dangerous, but still human. Skarsgard, on the other hand, conveys an otherworldly quality - an uncanny quality - that almost immediately tells the audience that this creature is not only not human, but isn’t even particularly interested in perfectly fooling you into thinking it is. Skarsgard, so youthful in appearance, uses that his his advantage with this Pennywise, as it provides an extra layer of uneasy and eerie disconnect for both the characters in the story and the viewers. All this Pennywise wants to do is terrify you, then eat you, and the intensity that Skarsgard brings to the table is formidable and truly unsettling. But there’s even more that Skarsgard has going on - his Pennywise is not a completely infallible, omnipotent menace; there are subtle hints in here that It’s just barely holding the Pennywise persona together, and that there’s something even more sinister and unrestrained in its rage sitting just below the surface. Ultimately, I have no hesitation calling IT one of the very best Stephen King adaptations. Ever. It fully delivers shocks, scares, and terror, but even more importantly, it totally nails the character bonds and the central friendship of the Losers in a way that is emotionally real and satisfying. Tremendously effective, IT is the most entertaining horror film of 2017, and one of the best movies (period) of the year so far. |
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