I'm going to start by saying that I didn't have high expectations for Mother! to begin with. I remember watching the trailer when it dropped out and being like, wow, this looks so not good. Watching it was the confirmation.
A young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) is living a happy and peaceful life with her writer husband (Javier Bardem) at their country home. Then one night a stranger (Ed Harris) knocks on the door and the husband invites him to spend the night without asking for her permission. Turns out he's a huge fan of the husband, he is soon joined by his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), and his whole family really, and they bring havoc in the woman's life. The husband doesn't care though, the more chaos, the better for his ego and his imagination.
That's the storyline shown in the trailers and that you can read anywhere really. Then there's another one but it's not really a storyline but more of an idiotic and boring second part, just as idiotic and boring as the first part. The worst part is that there isn't even a real connection between the two parts. You could easily split this into two movies and nothing would change. No, actually something would change, we'd have two terrible movies instead of one.
Whatever Aronofsky is trying to pass off as a plot doesn't even have a coherent narrative. It looks like he woke up one day with all these ideas in his head, he wrote them down and voilà, the script has been written. He did even bother giving these people names. Shame on me though because it took me almost an hour to notice that.
Another thing that bothered me was the biblical images and allegories. I know that's what you get with Aronofsky and it wouldn't have been a problem if they had a purpose. They are just thrown in there, there's no logic, no coherence, and they make the film even worst as they take away the element of surprise.
On the other hand, although they aren't explored that well, Mother! deals with many important themes such as motherhood, claustrophobia, fame, narcissism, lust, war and peace. But, once again, there isn't much logic in this.
Another thing Mother! is great at is wasting talented actors. However, in spite of the terrible script, a couple of them manage to do good. While I didn't like her in the first part as she starts panicking and there's fear in her eyes right from the start, Jennifer Lawrence does a pretty good job in the second part, and Domhnall Gleeson easily steals the show as one of Ed Harris's sons who is basically Cain.
Whatever Aronofsky is trying to pass off as a plot doesn't even have a coherent narrative. It looks like he woke up one day with all these ideas in his head, he wrote them down and voilà, the script has been written. He did even bother giving these people names. Shame on me though because it took me almost an hour to notice that.
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| Paramount Pictures |
On the other hand, although they aren't explored that well, Mother! deals with many important themes such as motherhood, claustrophobia, fame, narcissism, lust, war and peace. But, once again, there isn't much logic in this.
Another thing Mother! is great at is wasting talented actors. However, in spite of the terrible script, a couple of them manage to do good. While I didn't like her in the first part as she starts panicking and there's fear in her eyes right from the start, Jennifer Lawrence does a pretty good job in the second part, and Domhnall Gleeson easily steals the show as one of Ed Harris's sons who is basically Cain.
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