Film Review: Mother!

Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem star as the married couple at the centre of Darren Aronofsky’s deliciously depraved baroque nightmare, Mother! He is a moody yet successful writer and poet, she a meek-mannered literal home-maker. The characters are never named, credited only as Him and mother; both title and capitalisation underscoring their status, their role, their fate.

When an older couple (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer, ferocious) invade the couple’s picturesque home, Him is excited to have new sources of inspiration. Mother, on the other hand, is unnerved by their overfamiliarity, but her concerns are dismissed as paranoia. Already second-guessing herself, mother’s fears begin to map themselves into the very foundations of the house. The house bleeds. Its orifices begin to resemble genitalia. It has a beating heart. Is this insanity? Is this the end of days? Or is it only the beginning?

Aronofsky’s latest film will be understandably compared to many great psychological horror films and plays, from Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel, to Rosemary’s Baby, to Sarah Kane’s Blasted. However, he has an older, even more outrageous source: the Old Testament. As this fever-dream hellscape ratchets up the crazy with every extra houseguest, biblical stories violently collide with modern political concerns to create an audacious apocalyptic vision – with autobiographical undertones. As celebrity culture, Cain and Abel and climate change all co-exist, Aronofsky also seems to be exploring the narcissism of being deemed a creator. Or should we say, The Creator?

Ironic, then, that Aronofsky’s real-life girlfriend Jennifer Lawrence provides our POV. Matthew Libatique’s handheld camera leaves her face only to observe the frightening frenzy unfolding before her, which escalates with anarchic energy and disturbing visual flourishes. Enjoy your ringside seats to the end of the world – it’s one hell of a show.