premise distracts

Rating: 5/10 (21 April 2018)

Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) is the young wife of a writer (Javier Bardem). He's struggling with writer's block. One day, he invites an orthopedic surgeon (Ed Harris) to the house. He's a stranger and mother is uncertain about him. Then his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up who insists on going to a forbidden room. More and more people shows up and chaos ensues.
Darren Aronofsky has a great directing style. I admit that I know the premise of this movie before seeing it. That does influence the viewing experience. So I knew the meaning of the bone doctor immediately. The premise is very on the nose like a high school writing assignment. I wish this was a straight up haunted house horror. Aronofsky's style creates plenty of unease. Not giving the characters names added to this sense of unease. This has great mood but the premise is never far from the mind and that's distracting. Jennifer delivers terrific confused suppression. She's basically under constant emotional abuse. This would be a great personal horror if the surreal premise gets jettisoned.