Incredibly pretentious

Rating: 2/10 (14 October 2019)

I've been wanting to watch "Mother!" ever since I saw the first teaser trailer years ago in theatres. I had no idea what the movie was about because of the minimalistic tone of the teaser, but that intrigued me all the more. For one reason or another I missed out on seeing this movie in theatres, but that was probably for the best, because "Mother!" is one of the most boringly heavy-handed and pretentious films I have ever seen.
From start to finish, "Mother!" will lull you into a gentle slumber. Even when the happenings start to get wild and wacky, the film still seems to move along at a snails pace. It doesn't help that the goings on are completely unbelievable and utterly ridiculous. Look, I get what Darren Aronofsky was going for here. It's really not hard to understand what he was trying to convey through the visual medium of film, but it doesn't suddenly excuse the fact that at some point he stops telling a story and starts pleasuring himself all over the screen.
The movie is filled with religious metaphors that are beat over your head so much that by the end of the movie I wouldn't be surprised if you had a concussion. At first the religious themes are mildly subtle (as subtle as one brother killing another and then running into the wilderness can be), but by the final 30 minutes, all realism is thrown out the window for instead a collage of scenes that satirize Christianity, including the Catholic faith. And I don't have a problem with this; believe me, when it comes to Catholicism, there's a lot to criticize. But at least do it in a way that's not immediately noticeable and extremely blatant. I mean, the story stops so Aronofsky can throw in a million different critiques and references to Christianity, so much so that by the end he is basically remaking the book of Genesis.
Now I won't lie: there was one scene that actually made me gasp in surprise because of how suddenly the violence occurred. In a better movie, that scene would've changed the entire trajectory of the film. Unfortunately, because "Mother!" commits to being a metaphor instead of having a plot, the moment, while shocking, has no lasting impact on the viewer or the narrative. It ultimately serves no purpose, and neither does this movie.
2/10