Review of Mother (2016) by Frame R — 03 Apr 2018

The exclamation point is to give it more drama.

MOTHER!

It's very rare that my reviews indulge on going into spoilers, chiefly because plot doesn't have as much weight for me as for most people. Sometimes plot is just a means to an end so I far more like to appreciate content and craft. However, whenever people discuss Mother!, they focus on what happens, and I'm simply bound to do the same. The movie is marketed as psychological thriller, which in a way is, but you wouldn't expect to see a biblical allegory. This film forces you to swallow an overarching religious theme and depicts it in such a controversial way that it was obvious why some audiences left the theatre disgruntled. I imagine that it must be such a hard pill to swallow if you don't know what you're getting into and then have to sit through the entire third act not enjoying the direction it suddenly took. I didn't know about the thematic makeup of this film so I was a blank canvas. I've gone more than 90 times to the movie theatre this year alone, so it's always a refreshing change of pace when a movie turns out to be something I wasn't planning on, it shakes my out of my seat and makes me pay attention. All the way from the start of the movie you notice that this isn't your typical narrative-driven film but that is only confirmed in the third act in which it really gets preachy to a point of no return, unapologetically taking the darkest turn I've seen this year on film. Now, I want to make this point clear: this film isn't a brilliant masterpiece. The movie is poorly executed and it really is a pile of wrong storyboard decisions. The second shot, where Mother! walks around the house is superb. Besides that, Aronofsky spends the entire time in a close up of Jennifer Lawrence's face and instead of the rare long shots being more powerful because of it, they're just a huge relief. It's entirely too claustrophobic to spend 2h with JLaw close enough to be panting down your throat the whole time, it's incredibly frustrating but that son of a bitch of a director wants that. It also has no character development or even characters, actors are vessels and only that! On the flip side, this film is highly pleasurable to watch, it's really worth checking out because of how distinct it is and, despite being poorly made, it's incredibly bold in its premise and plot. You don't see many of these movies that have a great budget to make a director's wet dream. And make no mistake, this is nothing but a masturbatory exercise of Aronofsky's fetishes and unresolved psychological problems. Even the key relationship refers to that incredibly fucked up mind. It's a gory, out of control, lunatic wanna-be-piece-of-art which is also astonishingly trashy. It's not a good movie at all but I love it, in the same way that I love B horror movies from the 50s and so on. The only thing that is good about this movie is Michelle Pfeiffer, give her an altar now! Otherwise, it's an uncontrollable guilty pleasure and a feat to modern and egocentric filmmaking. It was the only movie this year which I immediately wanted to rewatch. Maybe I won't like it as much the second time around, I'll probably even hate it! But one thing is certain, it will stick to everyone's mind for a while.