November 19, 2018
Written by: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris
Budget: $33,000,000
Quote: "You never loved me. You just loved how much I loved you. I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING. You gave it all away."
Trivia: Throughout the entire movie, no one's name is ever mentioned and not a single character is ever referred to by any name, the way they are listed in the end credits is by their given role in the story.
My friend recommended this one to me having thought the trailer looked like "something I'd be into." He was right. And I can say without a doubt, this is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time! Like many of Aronofsky's films, it is not specifically a horror movie, but has so many horrific moments that the horror label is not totally incorrect. Director/Writer Darren Aronofsky is an absolute genius when it comes to creating disturbing visuals and building tension in his films and this film is probably his best (much more intense than the finale to Requiem For a Dream even). There are two scenes in particular that reach such an intensity that they made me physically anxious just watching them (One involves the ripping apart and eating of a baby). While the movie itself is nothing more than an allegory for another very familiar story, it is told from a new perspective and with such potency that the allegory was missed until the story had been almost completed. Many of the characters' identities and the film's metaphors also don't sink in until later. I won't get into what the film is an allegory for until after the synopsis, other than to say, this is my favorite version of this story. Some critics, Rex Reed in particular, seemed to have missed the point of the film, but I'll address them at the end of this review.
The movie is entirely set in a Victorian house in the middle of a forest and follows two characters, a wife (Jennifer Lawrence) and her husband (Javier Bardem). The husband is a writer struggling with writer's block while his wife and muse attempts to build up her house and turn it into "a paradise." Their tranquility however is broken when a dying man (Ed Harris) and then his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) show up. Despite the wife's insistence that they are an intrusion, the husband convinces her to let them stay. However, they anger even him when they go into his study, a place they are forbidden from visiting, and break a crystal. To make matters worse, their two sons arrive and one kills the other one in the house, terrifying everyone. Afterwards a huge memorial service is held at their house, to the wife's dismay, and after trashing the place, the husband and wife argue before have sex resulting in her pregnancy.
The news of her pregnancy finally breaks the husband's writer's block and he is able to pen his masterpiece. He is immediately a huge success and when the wife tries to make a big dinner for him, hundreds of fans arrive. The wife (now mother) tries to send them away but the husband says they need to be polite. From here on out the movie turns into absolute chaos. People began stealing things for souvenirs, the military battles gangs, humans are trafficked, her husband's publicists orders mass executions, etc. To make matters worse, this is the moment the wife goes into labor, and gives birth to her son upstairs as the house finally becomes quiet. The husband wants her to show the baby to his fans who are dying to see it, but the mother refuses. However, after she falls asleep, her husband takes the child out and the fanatical crowd accidentally kills the baby but afterward begin eating its torn apart body. The wife then attacks the crowd who immediately begin beating her. She is however rescued by her husband who tells her to forgive them. Pushed to the limit, the wife goes to the basement and lights the whole house on fire. The married couple survive and the husband asks for his wife love which he tears from her chest before making a new crystal, a new wife, and a new house.
If you haven't gleamed it from the synopsis yet, the movie is a biblical allegory. The husband is God, the wife is mother Earth and the first four unannounced guests are Adam, Eve, Abel, and Cain. While I was able to get the basic idea of the allegory, there were a lot of small biblical references that I missed: There is a moment we see a big injury on Adam's back before Eve arrives (the rib removed to create Eve) and the breaking of the crystal in the forbidden room is Adam and Eve's eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Then there are other moments that are more obvious: the killing of God's son and eating its body (the Crucifixion and Eucharist), Cain's killing of Abel, and the violation of mother Earth's paradise. What is especially interesting in Aronofsky's retelling of this story is that Satan is largely absent, aside from perhaps the evil within man. Told from Earth's perspective (instead of Man's) Satan is not necessary, Man is enough of a destructive force on his/her own. It is an absolutely heartbreaking story told from this perspective.
I am not sure if the movie is a warning to humanity or simply shows Man's inevitable course. The movie seems to take a more fatalistic look at Man's history with its circular story structure. The movie begins with a first mother burning the house and ends with a third mother waking up in bed after the second mother also burnt the house. The obvious message is that our existence is but one existence in an infinite loop of existences. This is one of the film's messages that is so hard to take. The visual destruction is so hard to watch, but there is nothing that can be done to stop it. Or, maybe my interpretation is incorrect and there is something we can do to stop our destruction of the earth, maybe the cycle can be broken. Either way, the message is powerful.
This is a horror movie blog, so I should at least devote a paragraph to the horror within the film. Aside from the cosmic despair from the film's theme (on the level with H.P. Lovecraft), Aronofsky creates some truly horrific visuals and intense tension. The tension is first revved up during the funeral party that happens following Abel's death. More and more guest enter the house uninvited and the house faces more and more destruction. The filmmaker's pacing her is perfect with it gradually increasing to the point where there seems to be no escape. We, the viewer, cannot help but feel the confusion and panic of Lawrence's character. It finally does end only to be increased ten-fold at the film's finale. The most horrific moment in the film, of course, is the mutilation and consumption of the mother's baby. This is such an important moment in Christian theology and receives equal weight here, albeit more for its revulsionary quality. An absolutely disgusting scene that Aronofsky must've known was not going to help with selling the movie. The visual effects are top notch (due in no part to the film's $33 million budget) and carefully demonstrate the more loathsome qualities of humanity. Aside from some people not getting the allegory, I think this is why so many critics disliked the film: When the light is cast upon humanity from that perspective it really is painful to watch.
There are many critics who argued that the movie was senseless, disgusting, and painful to watch. To them, I would argue: the movie makes perfect sense when you step back for one second to think about it, when looking at humanity there is always going to be a lot of vileness (otherwise it wouldn't be a complete picture of humanity, would it?), and lastly, who says film watching has to be a fun experience? Most of the greatest films have painful moments... that's why "feel good films" are largely forgotten after their initial first viewing. Film critic Rex Reed even went so far as to call the film, the "Worst movie of the century" (easy on the hyperbole there guy). In his review, he makes a baseless comparison of one sense to the Charlottesville riot of 2017, claims other reviewers don't even understand what the movie is a metaphor for, and goes so far as to write "Nothing about mother! makes one lick of sense as Darren Aronofsky’s corny vision of madness turns more hilarious than scary." It's a biblical allegory Mr. Reed. Even if you only have a cursory knowledge of the Bible then it really isn't that hard to grasp. I agree with director Paul Feig who wrote on Twitter (this was in regards to comments the critic said about Melissa McCarthy), "I cordially invite Mr. Rex Reed to go fuck himself." Seriously, fuck yourself.
I'm sorry about the Rex Reed rant. It really has nothing to do with the film. Maybe you agree with him that it wasn't a good, and that's fine. For me, I thought it was moving, visually stunning, and left me thinking, exactly what good cinema should do.
...I've said my piece, what's your thoughts?
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