Mother!
5 stars
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris
Duration: 121 mins
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd

Director Darren Aronofsky out-Aronofsky’s himself in his latest venture, an extravagant vehicle that is equal parts drama, horror and satire, driven by a career-best performance by Jennifer Lawrence.

Lawrence is the Mother of the title. She is a pleasant, yet introverted, young woman living a seemingly idyllic life in a desolate, rambling but beautiful house surrounded by a tranquil verdant landscape with her older poet husband (Javier Bardem) – who, like all characters in the piece, remains unnamed. The couple are clearly content, although he is preoccupied with a mild case of writer’s block. Mother whiles away her time redecorating the house, and we infer that the house has been in his family for years but was destroyed in a fire.

Their calm is shattered by the unexpected arrival of a Man (Ed Harris) on their doorstep, who claims he is seeking a place to stay for the night. To Mother’s surprise her husband is delighted to meet the man, and welcomes him inside with open arms. The two connect right away, chatting and having drinks together, a reaction that makes Mother ner­vous. Her nerves reach breaking point with the arrival of Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer). She is the Man’s wife, and to Mother’s horror, just as the men continue to bond, the Woman passive-aggressively gets under Mother’s skin with her subtle criticisms and comments, specifi­cally on Mother’s unwillingness – or ability – to bear children.

Up to this point, Mother! can suitably be described as a black comedy. But, when Man and Wo­man’s two sons arrive (played by real-life brothers Domhnall and Brian Gleeson), bringing with them a family dispute that before long descends into violence, the excrement really hits the cooling implement and things descend into wanton bedlam.

It is impossible to comment on what happens next without giving anything away. Suffice to say, the second half of the film is an orgy of noise and turmoil as time passes. Events take an interesting turn and Mother experiences a home invasion that turns her beloved house into an apocalyptic war zone.

The horrors she experiences are a profoundly disturbing cautionary tale about the pitfalls of fame, the pain of sacrifice, the sanctity of motherhood, the dangers of blind worship, the bond between creator and muse, the disastrous effects of climate change… and then some. The viewer should make of it what they will. Aronofsky himself admits that Mother! is hard to categorise, saying that even he can’t fully pinpoint where everything in this film came from… but everything is clearly in it.

There is blood and there is gore; there is laughter, there is pain; there is the normalcy of upper-class rural living and the nightmare of mysterious dark corners. There are moments of serene calm and others of frantic ins­a­nity and, if at a point it does get so overwhelming the director’s indulgence threatens to put off the viewer, it is still impossible to avert your eyes.

Bardem excels as the dedicated husband whose genuine devotion manifests itself in eerie ways, his mask of affability never slipping once. Harris is suitably mysterious as the Man.And it is indeed a pleasure to see Pfeiffer back on the big screen, at the top of her game as the overbearing, obnoxious, busybody whose cutting lines are delivered with the ex­pertise of an old pro. Yet, it is a film that is carried by Lawrence, who ventures into deep, dark places she has never explored before and unsurprisingly pulls it off with sheer class.

Hers is the energy that powers the film, an energy that never lets up from her opening scene to her final, horrific one. There is no falsity in her performance – she can’t afford it. Aronofsky tells his tale from her point of view; she is on screen most of the time. Oftentimes, the camera is on her guileless face in unnerving, yet beautiful, close-ups as she channels the emotions from serenity to utter hopelessness, with abject anxiety and leonine fierceness in bet­ween. The viewer is inexorably drawn to her and her plight, even when her behaviour is off,  sensing pulsating walls as she plasters, or having visions of human organs turning up on odd places, while furtively sipping a thick yellow substance whose origin and purpose is one of the film’s myriad unsolved mysteries.

I will confess to have dithered between four and five stars for this review. It was a solid five-star until all hell literally broke loose and the plot lost itself in a maelstrom of confusion. Yet, as I write this, I realise I cannot stop thinking about it, and I have a strong compulsion to revisit it. For it is hard to deny this is an audacious, visceral, unfathomable execution of a fearless director’s vision, and it deserves every star.