Film Review: M is for the Many Things ‘mother!’ Gave Me

CHICAGO – In a film that is unsettlingly and regally composed with deep purpose and symbolism, “mother!” fulfills the nature of what it proposes to communicate within layers of essentially rendered storytelling and cinematic perspective. It can potentially change your overall point of view.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

Written and directed by the wild-man auteur Darren Aronofsky (“Black Swan,” “The Wrestler”), the film is nothing less than a vision of religious science fiction, presupposing our current existence with afterlife implications. This is how I experienced it, and there will be other interpretations. Everyone who takes it in will have different points of view, because the emotions that the film generates most likely will be different sensations for everyone, including perhaps that the film is a nothing burger. But even that position means that the film has an effect, and will continue to have an effect as long as the art of cinema is studied.

A young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) is married to an older poet (Javier Bardem), and they live in an isolated estate with a home that had burnt to the ground, which the woman is renovating room by room. The poet has writer’s block, and it is torturing his soul. The woman’s position in the home is isolating, and the two never seem connected. An odd visitor (Ed Harris) infiltrates their calm, and the poet insists that he stay the night, which freaks out the young wife.

The next morning the visitor’s wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up, and completely disrupts the household. The visitor’s sons (Domhnall and Brian Gleeson) also show up and fight until the older one is killed. This sets off a funeral party at the house, and a series of events that results in the young wife’s pregnancy and a new best seller from the poet, which eventually creates anarchy.

“mother!” opens nationwide on September 15th. Featuring Darren Aronofsky Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kristen Wiig, Domhnall Gleeson and Brian Gleeson. Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. Rated “R”