Guess who's coming to dinner

Rating: 6/10 (28 September 2017)

"Mother!" is an American 2-hour movie from 2017 and this one was freshly released a couple days ago. It is the newest work by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and he got Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence to play the main character while being joined by Oscar winner Javier Bardem as something between male co-lead and biggest supporting actor. Anyway, this one here is the story of a couple living pretty much on their own without any contact to others really, but that is quickly about to change. And while Bardem's character, a struggling writer, enjoys the social networking, Lawrence's is all against it and wants to be left alone. This, however, is the exact opposite of what Ed Harris' and Michelle Pfeiffer's character (a combined 9 Oscar nominations) have in mind. And these moments when it is just the four of them were the best the film had to offer. This may be because Lawrence was basically an observer in her own movie as honestly for 90 minutes she was walking around in disbelief at what her man and the visitors were doing and this was when the film worked. It may not have been deep or relevant, but it was entertaining, also when the Gleesons enter the picture.
But sadly, the last act was quite a mess. One problem was that here they really needed a great actress to pull it off, but Lawrence came truly short. There was one argument about her giving her baby to him and it was so obvious there how inferior Lawrence was to the Spanish actor. Apart from that I also felt the two did not have the greatest chemistry to be honest, which was fine most of the time though as real togetherness and love between the two weren't really depicted. The final 30 minutes are also another problem though because honestly they never felt as spectacular and mesmerizing as Aronofsky probably intended them to be. In my opinion, it was a big decrease in quality there, but I am relatively generous with my rating still because everything before that was decent. Just one example: The first time the house is packed, everybody leaves with the water splashing, but then they basically do exactly the same again, people are outside, then get in and then it escalates more and more. It did feel repetitive to be honest. I also felt like this film tends to lose itself a bit in all these metaphors and symbolisms it uses, especially once again in the last quarter where it becomes biblical really, almost apocalyptic. So yeah I definitely could have done without that crass cut towards the end and would have preferred them to stay on the quietly mysterious path instead of turning this into a fantasy film really. Luckily the majority of the movie was good enough for me to recommend the watch here, even if it is obviously nowhere near Aronofsky's best sadly. Or Bardem's best. And in terms of the cast, I would have preferred a 4-person ensemble and I think the movie would have turned out better that way, maybe add the Gleesons to that, and I also would have preferred another lead actress. Then again I am not a Lawrence fan at all, but it's telling a lot that Aronofsky who wrote Portman to Oscar glory (how about her as Mother?) and almost directed Rourke to an Oscar too cannot do the same with Lawrence as honestly a nomination would even be a big surprise, even if this character has so much in the last 40 minutes: ugliness, mother instincts, heart-broken wife etc. True Oscar bait. Maybe too much in too little, so all that may potentially stay from this film is the relationship between director and lead actress. And that is certainly not enough as this movie had a lot more to offer in theory. But they had to get in embarrassing make-believe moments telling us how gorgeous Lawrence is. Just like Hollywood wants us so desperately to believe how talented she is. I disagree with both. As for the film, it's still a thumbs-up from me, but a cautious one as the last act almost ruined it all, maybe 10 minutes too long too.