Can a film be brilliant if you need help to figure out what it's about?

Rating: 7/10 (23 December 2017)

When a film presents as a mystery, we come to expect that at some pivotal point in the story the filmmaker will reveal the film's true nature to us. Those of us story-consumers who chase after mysteries and thrillers do so for that feeling of profound epiphany when everything clicks, illuminating the past and setting the stage for a riveting finale.
Darren Aronofsky has not made that kind of mystery. "Mother!" it turns out, is an allegory - a story that on the surface appears to be about one thing but is actually symbolic of another - in other words, no one's going to spell the true nature out for you. That's the poetic beauty of an allegory; either you find the perspective that allows you to intuit its meaning, or you don't.
So for many viewers, "Mother!" will be a confounding, maybe even terrible movie until a quick Google search for its meaning makes everything crystal clear. Once you know, you know, but the debate around "Mother!" will be whether Aronofsky's creative concept is nothing but pretentious preaching if the average viewer has to visit the movie's IMDb trivia page to understand it.
"Mother!" immediately shrouds itself in secrets, beckoning us to guess them and pay shrewd attention to the story's details. From the opening shots there's a magical, surrealist element at play, but one we assume to be part of the film's hidden secrets rather than part of the film's very fabric. Recognizing this is a key to cracking the allegory without "cheating."
We meet Jennifer Lawrence's character, who lives with her husband (Javier Bardem) in a beautiful, secluded house - his house - that she has lovingly and painstakingly restored after a fire. He is a famous poet, but he has struggled to produce his next great work, and that preoccupation has made her feel neglected and forgotten. When a mysterious man (Ed Harris) and later his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up at the house, their questionable guest manners exacerbate the situation and suddenly things spiral out of control.
At surface level, the film is a homemaker's (and anyone who believes in order and structure's) worst nightmare - guests who come in out of nowhere and overrun you and ignore all the rules. If Aronofsky fails at conveying all his other messages, he doubtless succeeds at creating a powerful empathy for his main character, and that's probably the most important of all the elements this story needs to work. This also requires an actor who makes that easier and few talents today are as beloved as Lawrence. Her character serves as a stand-in for our own frustrations and confusion at what's happening around her and expertly conveys the hopelessness of losing control.
The rest of the film is too tough to dive into without spoilers, but things get pretty off the rails, especially if the film's meaning hasn't become clearer by the final act. Even so, only having a hint at some of the themes and ideas that are at work in this movie isn't really enough to bring audiences on board with some of the events and challenging visuals of the tumultuous finale.
Aronofsky at least deserves credit for the filmmaking. "Mother!" has a riveting intensity to it from start to finish which is all the more impressive when you realize there hasn't been a note of a musical score in the entire film. There's a reason 99 percent of films use music and that Aronofsky makes a compelling thriller without one earns him accolades regardless of whether the experience felt like a waste of time.
Anyone who does discover (or Google) what "Mother!" is about will surely see some if not a ton of brilliance in Aronofsky's vision, but can it truly be brilliance if it requires "help" from outside the film like some kind of secret decoder ring? Objectively, one would think not, but once you have that decoder, it becomes impossible not to see the film through that lens and begin rabidly reassessing the entire experience.
The fact of the matter is that cryptic films have been made before and some of the great ones do convey their ideas clearly enough to connect with an audience during the experience of that art. "Mother!" fails in that regard, and so even with Aronofsky's incredible ideas, vision and storytelling, it can't be hailed as great without discrediting the audiences it failed to communicate to through no fault but its own.
But it might just be a masterpiece upon repeat viewings.
~Steven C
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