Mother! Review

Oh boy. If Mother! required a GIF to sum up the general reaction to it, the most obvious would be Ron Burgundy uttering the line, "boy, that escalated quickly." It’s a bold, wacky retelling of the biblical creation myth and the horrifying extremes of worship, love, desperation, and the damage that humans are capable of when left unchecked, amplified by ambivalence masked as compassion and acceptance by the one being worshipped.

It’s kind of stupid but that’s the point. Worship in some forms has an inherent stupidity to it. It is an essential part of humanity. It discards rational thought and that opens up a dangerous path. When you don’t have anyone saying "hey, maybe you shouldn’t do that," our self-destructive, tribal nature explodes to the fore. The world is raped, literally and figuratively in Mother! The horror and terror escalates to a point where the only choice left is to burn it all. Even the calmness has an off kilter sense. That feeling that everyone but you is in on something and you're afraid to ask what that something is lest you be spurned or exiled for it.

The characters have no names, less to grant them personal identification and more to show how, blatantly, they are mere representatives of man or god or elemental forces. Darren Aronofsky’s always been a little mad, and this is him clearly without a leash. While his previous film, Noah, was a weird take on that Old Testament tale until it devolved into a derivative horror malaise on the ark it still kept to a relatively traditional structure, setting and narrative (rock monsters notwithstanding). But here, in a framework that is all about smashing symbolism over the head of the viewer like a sledgehammer with a core of dark matter in it, Aronofsky discards all pretensions of subtext and realises that the boundaries can be pushed even further. Bless the man for it.

The idyllic world that Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) and Him (Javier Bardem) inhabit is disturbed by uninvited guests like Ed Harris as man and Michelle Pfeiffer as woman. It tests their relationship, her fortitude, and the very foundations of the house. Lawrence is trapped in the frame, pulling off the stupendous trick of becalmed terror. It’s a powerful, helpless performance. She positively glows, bedecked in loose clothing, perpetually barefoot, an offering of warmth that is ripe to be taken advantage of. As it must because most of the time people don't know how to have nice things, much less take care of it.

The unwanted guests become more frequent, there’s a death or two thrown in that keeps the analogies motoring along. Him struggles to create a new piece of writing that will match his previous works. She’s increasingly overwhelmed by the state of affairs. Caught trying to be an accommodating host, and railing against the expanding undercurrent of dread that's brewing within the household. To give away more is to cheat oneself out of the balls to the wall insanity that takes over the second half of the film.

When you think it’s reached peak crazy, Aronofsky goes further, daring us to shake our heads and yell at the screen at the pervasive ridiculousness of it all. But it’s done with such bravado and a cult-like commitment from the cast that if you’re on board with this beginning of the world injected with meth and speed right out of the gate, the rewards will be worthwhile. Aronofsky thrives on not being subtle and yet creating pieces of magnificent, confronting depth.

Humans are rarely subtle and he exploits that better than almost any other director. It does trip him up in some ways. The script faltering, feeling rushed, as if he was afraid to leave anything out, packing in as much as he can. The film doesn’t guide you along, and that can lose many people straight away. It’s daring, and risks dropping the proverbial ball many times. But then Aronofsky takes the ball and belts it into the sun. He wants more, more, more and by golly he gets it here, even if it dips into parody.