SENSATIONS OF HORROR, BEWILDERMENT, AND AGONY

Rating: 8/10 (26 August 2019)

In a Victorian-style house, secluded in a valley surrounded by forest defined as "paradise", lives a couple in intentional isolation. Since the movie does not name its characters, we can say that "mother" is "his" young wife, a poet who tries to rewrite a work that leads him to previous successes. She is in the midst of the restoration work of the old house, practically destroyed by a fire that only left a small gemstone, which the poet keeps on his desk as a relic.
Like traditional housewives, Mom! goes up and downstairs, often barefoot, doing everything from cleaning the house to paste the walls. We connect our perception with hers, because, except for two scenes, it is through her that the whole narrative of the movie occurs.
A doctor comes to the house, followed by his wife and, a little later, by his stranger children. Mom never gets an explanation about who those people are or why they are there in her home, breaking all the rules and the integrity of the house.
At first, we thought it was a farce, by the heat of the discussions and the nihilistic acting of man and woman, lived brilliantly by Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer. When the first violent death happens, and the kitchen sink comes down, we know that something inexplicable will happen in the movie than a simple psychological drama.
After a brief lull in which, for the first time, the husband fulfills a mother's desire and get her pregnant, everything seems to flow smoothly, and the poet completes his other creation, an overwhelming poem.
The end of the movie is packed with action that even the wildest spectator could not foresee: crowds invade and destroy the interior of the house, rival groups clash, armed struggle, anthropophagy, and chaos. There are disconnected apocalyptic symbols everywhere.
This is no longer an account: they are just sensations, lived with horror, bewilderment, and agony. But realizing that there is no more salvation amid the unruly mob, the mother goes to the basement of the house and completes (or begins) a life cycle.