An Extreme Dose of Lynch and Kubrick come with Aronofsky's Very Pretentious Mother!

Rating: 6/10 (10 September 2017)

Mother! tells the story of a young woman and her older husband as they move into their dream home in the countryside. One night, an older couple shows up at their door and all hell breaks loose from there on out. Now, Darren Aronofsky has been a personal favorite since Requiem for a Dream. His sense of style and perfection to his craft always resonated in his films. The hiccup of Noah was understandable but this film is a film that just should have been better. While I did love a lot about this film, there was almost an equal amount that I didn't.
First off, I loved the sense of dread the film gives off. It is less interested in giving the audience jump scares rather than making the story and images linger in your mind like a bad dream. I loved Aronofsky's visual style here especially in his set design. The house is a character in and of itself (not to sound totally redundant). I also loved the cinematography. Much like Black Swan, this is a very sweeping spectacle of camera work that is intoxicating. As intoxicating as the technical aspects of the film are, the actual story, script, acting and overall pacing leave much to be desired.
Mother! is most certainly a film that plays with your mind but I wouldn't necessarily call this a psychological thriller. This film is a horror film that the minds of Kubrick and Lynch would bring you, not Aronofsky. The script is bare minimum, the story is paper thin and the acting is wooden and overall plain. There are no stand out performances like there was in Black Swan, The Wrestler and even Noah. It falls flat and that really takes you out of the film. Javier Bardem is another very strange casting choice. You'd think he would knock this performance out of the park but it really was quite opposite here. Truthfully, the actors don't seem like they're interested in the work until the final 15 minutes of the film and by that time, I had about given up.
Overall, Mother! is a very strange film that Aronofsky had seemed to not put that much thought into. While I do plan on watching it a second time to get the full effect of it because the last 20 minutes or so is a real mindf*** that is bound to throw everyone for a loop and/or anger a lot of people. Either way, this one is bound to be a divisive one among cinema lovers and Aronofsky fans as I doubt many average movie goers will take to this.