A very good scary movie if you want to view it as just that

Rating: 7/10 (17 September 2017)

Mother! is a psychological horror film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. The movie is about a married couple living in a secluded country home being visited by strangers with the husband welcoming them in with open arms, much to the chagrins of his wife. The film has similarities with another movie of Aronofsky's, Black Swan, in that both are told through psychologically worn out female protagonists' eyes, forcing the audience to walk in her shoes and question their own sanity as the madness unfolds. Mother! has been extremely divisive since its release due to its controversial allegory and graphic content. To be honest, the popular interpretation of the metaphor did not even cross my mind once when I was watching, instead I took the movie for face value and it still had me enthralled, uneased and disturbed throughout. I believe if you go in to the movie having read about the supposed metaphor, it would greatly bias your opinion and affect your viewing experience, for that reason, I am going to review Mother! as a pure horror film to 1) avoid spoilers and 2) be objective.
Mother! is very gorgeous-looking and wonderfully-acted. The film might be slow to some, but it is never boring as the situation is always building towards something keeping you captivated. It is a very strange and surreal film told through Jennifer Lawrence's eyes. We do not know much about her except she is married to Javier Bardem's older character, but as the film establishes early on, Lawrence is possibly the sanest thing in the film. The camera literally follows her everywhere in the house, which we never get to leave, creating a sense of dread and claustrophobia. The first half of the film has mostly psychological horror, with Lawrence having to deal with unruly guests with unpredictable behaviors and her slowly deranged husband. I was intrigued at frame one and found myself gripping on my seat whenever Lawrence is in confrontation with anybody, even if it is somebody that logically should pose no real danger, but the film causes you great doubt regardless. The second half contains most of the controversial visceral horror, and detailing anything therein would constitute as a spoiler so I am just going to say: viewers discretion is advised. It gets really insane and crazy to a point where you will just be dying to know how it ends.
Technically the film is excellent. The cinematography brings the creepy house to life and the sound design is harrowing. The film captures the fear of being alone in your own house but not knowing if you are truly alone very well. Jennifer Lawrence gives the best performance I have ever seen of her yet; she touched the notes of vulnerability and weakness, loving, reluctance and then finally anger and contempt. Since she gets close to 100 percent screen time, any sort of hiccups or off- night would have put the film in jeopardy, but she brought it every second. Javier Bardem as the husband was wonderful as always, performing like the world-class actor he is.
There are some negative though, namely some pacing issues, particularly it being a little too long and dragging towards the middle, repeating certain situations over and over again. I just want to wrap my arm around the director's shoulders and tell him, "I get it buddy, the guests are rude, and she's vexed, now can we just move on?" The whole thing should have been shaven down to a leaner 90 minutes, which would have been sufficient to tell this story. Also a lot of weird things happen unexplained and never expound upon. I guess this feeds into the film's interpretational and allegorical approach, but also kind of lazy as it theoretically gives Darren Aronofsky the right to just throw in any bizarre content in the cauldron he can conjure and not have to worry about explaining it.
Mother! is a very good scary movie if you want to view it as just that. When you start to unravel the film and break it down, that is when objectivity usually gets thrown out the window in favor of own personal beliefs. Even if the metaphors are what Aronofsky intended, within the film itself it was never stated as canon, so everything is still just an interpretation and what is most important is what you choose to see the movie as. As a superficial psychological horror flick, it worked because it was scary, disturbing and jaw-dropping like a genre film should be.