All things considered, Mother! could be the most emblematic film of director Darren Aronofsky’s career. Much like the director’s recognizable work, the ballet thriller Black Swan and the addiction drama Requiem for a Dream, Mother! is a film that traffics mostly in disturbing, surrealist imagery and exploiting our worst fears: emotional isolation, cannibalism, and uninvited house guests.
At the centre of the film are Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) and Him (Javier Bardem), a married couple who live in a picturesque house in the bucolic and secluded surroundings that people in horror movies are unfortunately blessed with. Their life is a simple one: Mother renovates the house while Him, a poet suffering from writer’s block, tries to continue his work. All this changes when Man (Ed Harris) and Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and their offspring Oldest Son and Younger Brother (real-life brothers Domhnall and Brian Gleeson) arrive to disturb Mother and Him’s idyllic life. That’s nothing to say of the masses that follow. Sound familiar?
A supremely talented cast leads us through the baroque landscape of Mother and Him’s house. There’s not one bad performance in the whole bunch, which unfortunately doesn’t say much since the cast disappears as fast as it appears. That being said, Lawrence and Bardem are magnificent in their roles and completely control the film from start to end even if the chemistry between the two isn’t always there. Also enjoyable was the cameo of a particular Saturday Night Live alum—I don’t want to spoil the surprise—who provided some moments of levity amidst the carnage.
The most enjoyable aspect of Mother! has to be its eerie aesthetic. The whole film is shot in a grainy, yellow-tinted style reminiscent of grindhouse cinema which serves as a warning for the grotesqueness to come. A drop of blood on the floor stains a miniature Georgia O’Keeffe painting, a splash of yellow paint on the wall becomes a smudge of ash on a worshipper’s forehead. Riskier, is the choice to shoot most of the movie in close-up, reminiscent of Man Ray’s photography. While it can obscure some of the action at times, it also helps to further the deeply claustrophobic atmosphere of the film, aided, in part, by the lack of any musical scoring and jittery soundscape.
While this movie is unlikely to earn Aronofsky any new fans, it is important in affirming his legacy as the foremost creator of films that deal with religion. Mother! is a lot like Noah, the director’s previous film, insofar as it uses the Bible as a jumping off point for an exploration of Judeo-Christian ideas. Is Mother! about the rejection of a matriarchal Mother Earth figure for a more cosmopolitan, masculine god? Does it explore the Bible from the perspective of Sophia, the Christian allegorical figure for knowledge? The answer to these, and other questions you’ll probably have after watching Mother!, is a solid maybe.
For all the opaqueness of the symbolism in the movie, Aronofsky doesn’t give easy answers to any of the viewer’s questions. As it should be. In the age of YouTube explanation videos for everything from Game of Thrones to the Alien movies, it’s nice to see a movie so hostile to easy interpretation as this one. It isn’t a movie for everyone, but if you’ve enjoyed Aronofsky’s other work or have a taste for the macabre and unrelenting, Mother! is right up your – and my – alley.
