An Audacious Tightrope Act

Rating: 9/10 (23 September 2017)

"You're probably not going to like it." "I really don't know what to think of it, just warning you." "It's a lot, it's probably not for you." I've been hearing a lot of these kinds of comments from friends who were lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to see Mother! the latest waking nightmare bursting forth from the mind of Darren Aronofsky. Meanwhile professional critics have been comparing Mother! to The Fountain (2006), arguably the director's most ambitious movie until now and a film that I found to be one of the most ill-conceived, malignant stains in the history of film. I was not looking forward to this one. I really wasn't.
So the fact that I enjoyed and may have even loved Mother! is a bit of a surprise for all of us. There's no denying this movie is bold, this movie is audacious, this movie is thick with literary allusions, biblical symbolism, belabored metaphors, messy excesses and disturbing imagery. There's also no denying that at a rumored $33 million budget and distribution being handled by Paramount, Mother! may just be the most radical "mainstream" movie to come out since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Mother! sells itself as a horror movie about a couple (Lawrence and Bardem) whose tranquil existence begins to fall apart with the arrival of uninvited guests. Basically Rosemary's Baby (1968) meets Funny Games (1997) for the millennial generation. What it actually is is a loosely braced story where the initial setup is exploited via dream logic to create a sustained sense of bleakness. When I say this movie is a waking nightmare, I mean it! Starting with a slight feeling of unease, isolation and exclusion and blossoming into full blown despair by the time the third act explodes on the scene. And because the film is told entirely and oppressively from Jennifer Lawrence's near helpless perspective you just can't escape the doom and gloom that follows.
Aronofsky revisists many of the same themes he has always dabbled in since Pi (1998) but started to investigate in earnest during the production of The Fountain. Yet unlike that film, which tried to marry the emotional with the metaphysical, Mother! is opting for full-scale emotional filmmaking mounted like an old-school creation/destruction myth. It's unruly and grandiose, sure but Matthew Libatique's moody cinematography which lives and dies off of POV's, extreme close-ups and 360 shots means we're always in the moment. This isn't shadow play where the film's modus operandi hangs over the frame like a thesis over a dry dissertation. This is an emotional screed, a provocation, a full-frontal attack.
And what exactly is this film attacking? The fragility of the male ego perhaps – our husband after all is an infinitely adulated writer who at times seems more scared of being left alone than the hell that is other people. The film can also be seen as an effrontery of modern religion as it starts with allusions to Genesis then rushes into Revelations taking just enough time to turn the other cheek with shards of glass - populist politics, false prophets, humanities penchant for burning the candle at both ends Whatever you think this film is ultimately about, most will walk out with the same feeling that they need to take a long hard look in the mirror and maybe take a shower.
The film is not without its faults. The screenplay was written in a flash of inspiration over a five day period. And boy does it show with a lot of confusing narrative threads and shallow, dry characters that are function only. Thankfully Bardem, Pfeiffer and Harris are all up for the challenge of making their characters more than the stuff of fables. Lawrence while certainly trying harder than the rest can't help but feel more like an exposed nerve. Of course that may be the point but I couldn't help but wonder if the movie's big idea might be better serviced by an actual, you know, character. I don't know about Aronofsky's mother but mine wouldn't stand for this film's going-ons even in a fugue state.
Those not inclined to watch the blended state of mind of a good David Lynch film, a bad Lars von Trier film and the Facebook newsfeed of a paranoid nihilist must take heed. Do not watch this movie unless you want to spend the next two days peering out the blinds in contempt and suspicion. Yet for those on its wavelength, Mother! puts on the screen a brave, timely, primal and baffling composite of passion and despair. I wouldn't go so far as to claim that it represents humanity in microcosm but sometimes I wonder if we're not far off from it.