Mother! 2017

Mother!
Not a new film but I just watched it yesterday and decided almost immediately that I wanted to share a review of it

Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, this is his 7th feature film behind the camera. Some very good and financially successful (The Wrestler and Black Swan), one quite good but flopped in ticket sales (The Fountain), and one really quite bad but still made money (Noah). The powers that be at Paramount Studios must have paid way more attention to the figures of the first two rather then the latter two when they green lit the $33m for this film.

I both watched and read reviews of this film when it was released and it ran The Last Jedi-close in terms of divisiveness. Is it a masterpiece or just the rambling of an egotistical director? Here’s my take on it. There will be some spoilers here but nothing that isn’t clear to see within the first 30 minutes of the film.

On the surface Mother! has all the markings of a home invasion story. It starts with Lawrence, who plays a character named simply Mother, while Javier Bardem plays her much older husband called only by the name Him. They live in a secluded house that Mother has refurbished from top to bottom with great care, while Him, a famous poet, struggles to write again.

If you’d not heard or read anything about this film then it may take 30 minutes to realise this is a story about the relationship between God and Mother Nature/Gaia with the house being Earth – complete with biblical stories within the story…the messages are neither ambiguous nor subtle.

This will not be an easy film to watch for some and others may find it outright offensive. but films are a work of art and sometimes art splits opinions.

This is not for your casual movie goer and you’ll not find it being played at family Christmas get togethers but it had me hooked from the start. Lawrence shows again why she’s one of the most sought after actors working today. For her and Bardem to receive Razzie nominations for worse actress and actor respectively for this movie is beyond ridiculous. Bardem was ok but Lawrence was as good as I’ve ever seen her, maybe better. Sometimes it’s tough to look beyond an actor when they get too famous and that’s all you see in films they are in. Tom Cruise being a good example. With the exception of Collateral, I never see a character, I just see wee Tom. But I didn’t see Lawrence once. I saw a loving, happy, confused, terrified and angry woman who had no idea why these dreadful things were happening to her and why her supposedly loving husband was not protecting her when it seemed he had the power to make it all stop. Michelle Pfeiffer was great too as the Spiteful and underhand Woman/ Eve. It was good to see her bare her acting chops. Ed Harris was fine as her husband, Man/Adam, but was the weakest of the main four actors here.

It was horribly mis-marketed. Seemed to me when the studio saw it they were very worried for their millions and decided to try to get bums on seats by selling it as a Rosemary’s Baby remake (I’ll put the film poster at the end of this review to show the lengths they were going to to try and fool the audiences) and although they have similarities, they are very different films

Is the egotistical director on show here? Yes of course, but ego driven directors are the rule rather then the exception.

Is it a masterpiece? That may be a stretch but what it is, is a no holds barred mirror being held up to the world, with some of the best acting you could hope for.

If people are in any doubt if they should watch it or not I’ll just say don’t let the message get in the way of what is a damn good film.