A unique and polarising piece of film-making

Rating: 6/10 (23 January 2018)

As a Darren Aronofsky film, mother! was never going to be your everyday run of the mill movie-going experience, but Aronofsky's passion project with his at-the-time partner Jennifer Lawrence was a truly polarizing experience upon release, that ended up being the acclaimed director's biggest box office bomb that many average cinema-goers and some esteemed critics took a passionate disliking to.
Month's on from its initial release and with a divide between the fan's and the hater's, watching mother! is an interesting experience as Aronofsky's metaphorically heavy and often head-scratching bizarre film is a beautiful, unique and sometimes mesmerizing experience that is most certainly not the horror in a creepy house film that much of the films initial advertising made it out to be.
Taking place entirely in the renovated house of Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem's couple who find themselves harboring an increasingly large number of unwanted guests after Ed Harris's mysterious doctor arrives at the doorstep with his wife played by Michelle Pfeiffer in tow.
Saying too much more about mother's! story would be giving away too much, but Aronofsky cares little about moving thing's along quickly or giving the audience easy answers to the oddities occurring within the walls of this untypical abode, with his film suffocating you within its tight confines as things take increasingly shocking turns towards a final stanza that will leave many viewers in a state of feature film trauma.
At the front and centre of Aronofsky's divisive experience is a committed and intense performance by Lawrence who is tasked with a variety of intense scenes as well as a wide ranging scope of emotions and the much talked about actress can hold her head up high as mother! sways from brilliant to bonkers, often in the same scene, while she remains entirely committed to the task at hand.
In many ways its one of last year's most impressive turns, and had mother! connected more on a wider scale its likely Lawrence would've once more been a major player at end of year award functions but as is now the case, mother's! failure to resonate with most in the know, means this is not to be.
Final Say -
Likely to be discussed for year's still to come and a candidate for future discoveries where many may call Aronofsky's curious event a masterpiece of sorts, mother! is a film like none you've ever seen before and a film with moments of greatness and equally terrible portions of unintentionally poorly executed scenarios.
3 unwanted painters out of 5