The Most Pretentious Director In Hollywood Strikes Again

Rating: 4/10 (25 December 2017)

First off, let me say right off the bat: I understand that this is an allegory film. If a viewer doesn't understand that part of things, this film will make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
For a basic plot summary, "mother!" sees Mother (Jennifer Lawrence), and I'm using the billed names here, living in a falling-down house that she is repairing with Him (Javier Bardem). One day, Him invites a Man (Ed Harris) and a Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) into the house, and things start to get weird. Eventually Man and Woman's two sons, Oldest (Domhnall Gleeson) and Youngest (Brian Gleeson), join the proceedings, and a murder takes place. From here, the events spin even further out of control and descend into complete and utter madness.
The allegory here is that Lawrence's character is Mother Earth, Bardem's is God, while Harris/Pfeiffer are Adam/Eve and their sons Cain and Abel. Once you understand that framework, this film is (at very least) watchable. Without it, the narrative makes no sense whatsoever.
Even understanding the allegory, though, can't lead me to a better appreciation of the film. The problem, IMHO, is that Darren Aronofsky is establishing himself as perhaps the most pretentious director in Hollywood. First, he pretty much makes a mockery of "Noah" (that film is bad whether you believe the Biblical story or not). Now, he uses similar religious and classic themes in such a messy fashion that it really isn't all that meaningful or thought-provoking.
The message here is that humans are destroying the planet and God is helping them with the task. If that is Aronofsky's view of humanity, then so be it. I'm not overly religious, nor am I an outspoken atheist, so I like to consider myself open to possibilities. The problem here, though, is that I think the "humans are destroying the Earth" narrative needs to be mediated by some positivity.
Simply put, I don't want to sit for two hours and watch a film that brow-beats me. At least, not one that doesn't allow for a possibility of change. It very much feels like Aronofsky sitting up on his high horse condemning the rest of us, which feels incredibly pretentious to me.
Had this film done something other than criticize, I think I would have enjoyed it much more than I did. As it stands, however, "mother!" to me is just too pretentious to ever deliver an interesting or entertaining message.