Unique, absurd, disturbing, and extremely well made.

Rating: 7/10 (20 September 2017)

The reason why this film has an F grade on Cinema Score is because this film is impossible to market. There is no feasible way to convey what this film actually is in a 30 second trailer. The trailer makes out that the film is some kind of horror film, which is absolutely not the case. There are horror elements, sure, but it is not a horror film. So this leads me to believe that the reason it has received such polarising responses is because a large percentage of the people going to see it are expecting "Jennifer Lawrence in a horror film", and those people will have been sorely disappointed. Everyone sitting near me at the cinema was remarking how bad the film was, and how much of a waste of time it was, and to be honest I don't blame them. If you go into it as a casual movie-goer, and you see a mainstream actress like Jennifer Lawrence is in a horror movie, that alone may be enough to convince you to go and see it. Hence the F grade on Cinema Score, and the extremely divisive response to the film.
As for the film itself, I had my theories during the film but I found afterwards that there is a single metaphor that the film conveys. There are however multiple ways of interpreting a lot of it, and there is no single "right answer", which is something I appreciated. Any of you considering seeing it, I do urge you NOT to research what the film was intended to be about beforehand as it serves to make the film much more interesting on reflection.
The performances were top-tier, as expected, the cinematography and the set design, which isn't something I usually pick up on, was incredible. The whole film takes place in this one (large) house, so you get to know the house pretty well by the end.
As far as criticism goes, the pacing is weird. On reflection this is necessary for what Aronofsky wanted to do, but while you are watching the film you will likely be WTFing multiple times. Although there is a general sense of unease and threat throughout the entire film, there are some scenes which are very slow and borderline boring, and entire segments of the film are very slow to build. By the time it reaches the last 30 minutes, the film has become literal insanity, with absurd and extreme things happening too fast to keep track of.
Another thing to mention is that some of the content in the last 30 minutes is disturbing and arguably excessive. I was fine, but my girlfriend was unable to watch the end of the film.
Overall, it gets a solid 7/10 from me. Unique, absurd, disturbing, and extremely well made.