★★★☆☆

By Jack Spillane

Director Darren Aronofsky doesn’t do uplifting. Charting back to the lurid exploits of the heroin addicts of Requiem for a Dream, to the heartbreaking top rope dives of The Wrestler, Aronofsky likes to destroy your day like so few others can. Not only that, but he can twist your mind inside out while he does it. Aronofsky really has made it an art form, so any film of his is often met with a divisive reaction, especially if it’s an inexplicable retelling of Noah’s Ark starring a beefed up Russell Crowe.

mother! arrives with a mega star lead in Jennifer Lawrence and a trailer that portrayed the film as something in the horror/thriller vein of this year’s smash success Get Out. The combination of the two has placed mother! somewhere it does not belong… the mainstream. What may seem like a creepy film about a couple (Lawrence and Javier Bardem) dealing with overly intrusive house guests (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) could not be any further removed. This is a strange, strange, strange film that combines biblical allegories with pitch black humour and some truly upsetting, horrific scenes.

That is not to say this is a horror film because it really isn’t. There are horrible scenes in it for sure, but for the most part mother! will drive you mad with stress and confusion. And that just might be the point. All of the characters are referred to in the credits as simply Him, Mother, Man, Woman etc. and there is an incredible surreal, dreamlike quality that as it reaches its conclusion increasingly treats your head like a punching bag. Love it or hate it, mother! will leave a lasting impression and there is truly something to be said about that.

Audiences have roundly rejected the film, securing it an impressively bad F rating from CinemaScore, which combined with the underwhelming box office performance, furthers how little mother! belonged in mainstream cinema. Critics on the other hand have appreciated this interesting, downright ridiculous movie, which has somehow found its way in to cinemas alongside the usual remakes, sequels and franchise films. It is bizarre to think of this film competing for screens with Kingsman: The Golden Circle and IT in multiplex cinemas, but this is the position ‘mother!’ finds itself in.

J-Law fans are going to be disappointed, but this is her best performance since ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ and a welcome change to her sleepwalking through X-Men and the Hunger Games movies. She gives an incredibly physical and difficult performance with the camera spending an uncomfortable amount of time locked in close up on her as she moves her way round her home. The performances are excellent across the board with Pfeiffer in particular being a perfect vodka swilling, annoyance to Lawrence’s tranquil home life.

Bardem is excellent as Lawrence’s poet husband. He openly welcomes an increasing amount of guests into their home and as the adoration for his written work builds and builds, he becomes more oblivious to the obvious negative effect it is having on his wife and their marriage. As the run time progresses the films grip on reality loosens and heads towards heavy handed metaphors, which is where many people will check out. It’s hard to blame them, this is not a conventionally entertaining film and the ridiculous surreal antics in the final third are tough to digest.

It’s frustrating because there is so much to like in mother! as the majority of the film is genuinely unsettling. You want to know why these people are disrupting Lawrence’s home life and why her husband seems so content with letting any old stranger stay over and trash the house. Being locked in the perspective of Lawrence’s character makes you anxious as to what everyone’s true intentions are, it’s only once you click with what the film is actually about that you go with it or you don’t.

It’s rare when a film can be so easily classed as great and utter trash at the same time, which makes it pretty much impossible to recommend. Someone might think you have a strong disliking for them if you told them to go check it out. mother! has found a strange place in film criticism and mainstream cinema, making it tough to fathom why Paramount decided to give this a wide release. So thanks to them it now stands as both one of the most hated films by audiences in recent memory and one of the most critically divisive films of the year. The only way to know if you’ll like it is to go see it, but I certainly won’t be the one to say to do that.

Jack Spillane is a Multimedia Journalism graduate who spends an inordinate amount of time at the cinema and talking about movies (to the point of annoying those around him). He also dabbles in television, football and basketball to much less irritating effect.