A decent drama that turns into...a religious allegory?

Rating: 6/10 (5 February 2018)

So, we all know how divisive this movie was when it was released. After finally seeing it, my thoughts are a bit like the film was, all over the place.
It starts out simply enough. Jennifer Lawrence's character is working hard to repair her house from, well they don't really tell you but you find out later, while her husband (Javier Bardiem), a famous poet, is struggling with writer's block. Some unwelcome guests drop by, because they think it's a hotel, rather than a house. It turns out, that's just barely scratching the surface. More and more guests come by as more drama unfolds. Then, after a tense standoff between husband and wife occurs, as if on cue, they conceive a baby. During her pregnancy, she has to endure the constant flow of strangers at the house. Then, a deadly family battle royale among the guests, a rave, a war battle and a SWAT raid all occur within the confines of their house. That's when you realize that there is more going on than your eyes are telling you.
The moment happens when the baby is born but Mother's happiness is short lived, as the baby is plucked from her, offered up to the guests and devoured. This is the moment when I said ok, what is the point of all this? Really? Understandably, Lawrence is enraged and starts killing the guests, leading to the penultimate moment where she causes the house to explode, killing everyone inside, except for her and her husband. Then we see him carrying her, lying her down and taking her heart out, which is supposed to represent the last thing she has to give, her love. Then the house resets and we see her wake up again, the same way the very beginning of the movie happens.
So of course, I had to look up what the heck this all meant. I am not a very religious person and I haven't been to a parochial school since I was a pre-teen. It turns out, this is a retelling of the story of the bible. Bardiem's character is God, Lawrence's character Mother Nature (now I get the "Mother!" title), the first batch of houseguests Adam and Eve, the baby was Jesus and so forth. Now that I understand the movie, I have to ask, why did Aronofsky want to do this movie? I also understand now the animosity from Lawrence that led to their breakup, "can we not talk about Mother? I would like to talk about something else for once!" Yeah, it wasn't a good decision to do this. I can understand that the more religious demographic will think this is brilliant but I find it disturbing for the sake of it. Don't get me wrong, I am a horror movie fan and I don't scare or disturb easily but I think he just wanted to put together horror elements, while excusing them by saying, "oh, it's just the bible." If it was just a slasher flick, it probably wouldn't get all that much attention but because it represents the bible, all of a sudden it's brilliant, is nominated for Oscars and what not. I don't buy into it.
I think at the end of the day, I would have enjoyed it more if they just stuck with the drama between the husband and wife and the houseguests and not went off the rails with all the horror elements. I understand that would have defeated the purpose but again, why would anyone want to do this? It's not interesting and it just makes all the disturbing content seem cheap and pointless. Either be a drama or be a horror movie but don't use religion as a base, because it's rather, as the British say, daft.