Mother!

As a movie, Mother! defies description, and therefore it defies a conventional review.  It's plot cannot really be summed up in a synopsis that runs a paragraph or two.  It's a movie that seems to be designed to enthrall certain audiences, and baffle others.  It's challenging, disturbing, and kind of beautiful at times.  It's also very maddening, and not all of it works as well as it should.  But, I found myself embracing it, flaws and all.  Your mileage may vary.

If I must sum up the experience of watching the film, it would be akin to watching a cinematic interpretation of somebody's nightmare.  The kind of nightmare where something sinister is going on, and everybody seems to be either in on it or know something.  The only thing is, you don't know, and nobody's willing to share any information.  Everybody acts like things are normal, however, there is something unsettling about what's going on, even when things seem to be normal.  If there is one thing this movie succeeds at, it's putting us in the shoes of its heroine, a young wife played by Jennifer Lawrence.  We share her confusion and sense of isolation as events unfold.  Like all the characters in the film, she does not have a given name.  She has moved into a large home located in the middle of a vast field with her husband, an older gentleman played by Javier Bardem.  He is credited simply as "Him", and is a writer and a poet suffering writer's block.

The couple have spent a good amount of time fixing up the house they are living in, with the wife doing most of the work, while her husband struggles with what to write next.  There are hints of marital struggle, mostly surrounding the hopes of her becoming pregnant soon.  Then one day, an unnamed man (Ed Harris) shows up at the door rather suddenly.  He claims to be a doctor, but it soon turns out that he is a fan of the husband's poetry.  His hacking cough seems to hint that he is ill, yet he is addicted to cigarettes.  The husband graciously invites the man to stay with them in their home, and the heroine is confused by this act of generosity.  Not only do they not know this man, but this is also an affront to her personal space.  This increasing sense of encroachment and loss of privacy will become a heavy theme as the film goes on.

Another visitor, a woman and the wife of the Harris character (Michelle Pfeiffer), turns up the very next day, just as unexpectedly as her husband arrived.  She too is welcomed into the home by the husband.  The mystery woman seems very standoffish toward the wife, probing, almost judgemental at times, even though there obviously should be no reason for her to be.  She is a hard drinker, but it does not explain why she acts so cold whenever the wife is around.  From this point on, I will have to tread carefully.  There are more unexpected visitors, and somebody dies within the home.  The wife is mortified, but the husband seems strangely calm the entire time, simply stating that they must be kind to their "guests".  As the wife tries to grapple with everything going on around her, she is haunted by visions, both concerning herself, and seemingly something about the house.

At its most basic level, Mother! could be described as a sort of home invasion thriller, but that's not really doing it justice.  After all, the husband invites these people in with open arms, even though he claims not to know who they are.  He is unflinchingly generous, even in the face of the sometimes rude or even violent behavior of the people who keep on descending upon the home for reasons unknown to the wife, and to us the audience.  More and more people begin to invite themselves into the home, and immediately start acting like the wife does not exist.  They trounce through the rooms without any care, they begin remodeling the house and painting the walls to their own design, and they completely destroy the sense of privacy the home once had.  And the entire time, nobody can understand why the wife is upset about this, nor do they sense her paranoia.

What it all leads up to, I dare not reveal, but I will say that the final half hour is simultaneously the most fascinating and frustrating time I've had at the movies in quite a while.  I get what writer-director Darren Aronofsky is going with, and after much meditation on the final scenes, I have a notion as to what he is trying to say.  But it will take a lot of investment for a lot of audiences, I think.  Anyone who insists on instant gratification with their movies would do better to look somewhere else.  Even those who admired the film, such as myself, will probably have to think long and hard as to why exactly.  It's easy to praise the film in a technical sense.  It's well acted, includes some wonderful camera work that creates a genuine sense of dread with its tight corners and close ups, and is constantly intriguing.  Does the film get to be a bit much at times?  Undoubtedly.  By the end, there is so much going on all at once, you feel like you're watching a train wreck.  But I was still enthralled by what I was watching.  Yes, it was a mess, but it was one that had captivated me.

The hard question to answer is how do I feel about this film?  I feel that Aronofsky has made an ambitious movie about a variety of topics, such as invasion of privacy, religion, and the allure of quick fame, as well as the fanatical fandom that can come with that quick fame.  It doesn't always work, and there are moments here that seem to be weird simply for the sake of being weird.  But, at the same time, I have to admit that this is a movie I will not soon forget.  There are powerful images, some great ideas, and I was certainly always captivated.  I was also completely unnerved in certain moments.  This is a movie where you feel like something sinister is always happening, but you don't know what exactly.  A lot of this has to do with the performances of Bardem, Harris and Pfeiffer, who seem to all be in on some kind of secret that they refuse to let anyone outside of their group in on.

Mother! is not the result of the filmmaker at his best ability, but it is suitably intriguing, and honestly, it's certainly unlike any movie you've likely to have seen, or will see again.  It's ominous, challenging, beautiful, and kind of wickedly funny in certain moments.  It also can be an alienating and isolating experience.  It's creepy, uncomfortable and unhinged.  It also probably tries to fit too much into one movie at times.  It's all this, and whatever your final judgement ends up being, I doubt you will forget watching it anytime soon.

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