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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