Editor’s Note: mother! opens in wide theatrical release today, September 15, 2017.
The rare auteur working inside the studio system, Darren Aronofsky’s (Noah, Black Swan, The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream, Pi) obsessions, with life, death, and above all, art with a capital “A,” filtered through a particular, unparalleled preoccupation with spirituality, mysticism, and religion (of both the Judeo-Christian and non-Judeo-Christian variety), not to mention a filmmaking approach that skews away from classical, conventional modes of storytelling (Hollywood) and toward non-conventional, experimental modes (European), make Aronofsky one of the most unique, uniquely rewarding voices currently working in American cinema. It also makes him – at least for mainstream audiences – a uniquely frustrating filmmaker. Prone to deliberate obscurantism – or alternatively interpretative ambiguity, uncertainty, and doubt – Aronofsky’s oeuvre can be equal parts challenging, confrontational, and in the case of his latest art-as-provocation, mother!, a genre-redefining, big-themed horror drama, literally and figuratively incendiary.
A more metaphorical interpretation would read mother! as a spiritual predecessor or even successor to Aronofsky’s last film, Noah, and its environmental concerns. All could be “correct” readings. All could be “wrong” too (if that’s even possible). Ultimately, however, all reads, like all roads, lead back to Aronofsky.
When we meet the unnamed protagonist, Her (Jennifer Lawrence), she’s awakening to a new day, a new dawn. Married to Him (Javier Bardem), a world-famous poet-prophet, she’s content with a simple, idyllic existence alone in the seeming middle of nowhere, a multi-level home surrounded by a forest, but with no visible roads in or out. She’s content playing homemaker to Him, catering to his every physical and emotional need, subservient and submissive to his desires. She lacks agency – or rather, she’s willingly given over agency of even the most minor or tangential life choice to her husband – in effect making her a projection or extension of her desires. She pads around their empty house barefoot (more literalism for anyone looking for signs, clues, and portents in even the most minute detail in mother!), fixing breakfast, lunch, and dinner for her poet-husband, alternating home repairs and renovations with sitting quietly a few feet away while he struggles with the next, great poem that will reintroduce him to the world and thus relevant again.
The quiet, quietly desperate, dream-like idyll breaks with the arrival of a stranger (Ed Harris), a surgeon with a nicotine addiction, a persistent cough, and a story about being lost and assuming he found a bed-and-breakfast when he stumbled upon their house in the middle of nowhere. Almost immediately, the stranger admits he’s a longtime fan of the poet, in turn revealing his true purpose: Not just to meet an admired poet, but to get as close as possible (i.e., not close at all) to the divine spark that animates the poet and his work. Her husband’s willingness to humor the stranger isn’t so much a reflection of his generosity (it’s not), but more a reflection of his egotistical, narcissistic desire for admiration and adoration, a desire that becomes even more pronounced when the stranger’s wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) appears unannounced the next morning and wrangles an open-ended invitation to stay from their gregarious, welcoming host.
Aronofsky’s oeuvre can be equal parts challenging, confrontational, and in the case of his latest art-as-provocation, mother!, a genre-redefining, big-themed horror drama, literally and figuratively incendiary.
The unexpected, unwanted arrivals don’t stop there, however. The couple’s two grown children (Brian and Domhnall Gleeson) appear soon thereafter, enacting the Cain-and-Abel story within minutes of their arrival, to predictably disastrous results. Each new arrival, each new interaction reveals a new layer of her husband-poet’s narcissism and gas-lighting expertise, throwing Her mentally and emotionally off-balance. But what starts as psychological horror with an undertone of the supernatural – the fire-and-brimstone prologue, a house that seems to have a life and purpose of its own – with a blackly comic, darkly satirical “hell is other people” theme segues into full-blown apocalyptic horror, all without leaving the house. Aronofsky cycles through multiple influences, chief among them Roman Polanski (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby) and Lars Von Trier (Anti-Christ, Melancholia, Element of Crime) before shedding those influences altogether to put his distinctively Aronofskian spin on familiar Biblical stories and myths, everything from Abraham and Isaac (Old Testament, represent) and Jesus Christ (New Testament, also represent) and literalized version of Holy Communion (i.e., the Body and Blood of Christ) that will offend, disgust, and repel mainstream moviegoers, let alone mainstream moviegoers who consider themselves true believers in Christianity.
But as always, Aronofsky doesn’t just want to offend, disgust, or repel moviegoers. There’s a method to his madness (if it’s madness at all). He has another intention in mind – or rather multiple intentions. From one perspective, mother! can be viewed as one of the most expensive therapy sessions put on film, reflecting Aronofsky’s struggle with deep-seated, interpersonal, personality-driven issues. Another interpretation casts the poet (or filmmaker) as a prophet and visionary, as an artist whose creativity places him (or her) on a near godlike pedestal, relegating everyone around him to bit, supporting players, their desires of little, if any, importance (likewise their suffering). A less charitable interpretation would cast the poet not as a prophet or visionary, but as an example or exemplar of patriarchy. A more metaphorical interpretation would read mother! as a spiritual predecessor or even successor to Aronofsky’s last film, Noah, and its environmental concerns. All could be “correct” readings. All could be “wrong” too (if that’s even possible). Ultimately, however, all reads, like all roads, lead back to Aronofsky.
Aronofsky’s oeuvre can be equal parts challenging, confrontational, and in the case of his latest art-as-provocation, mother!, a genre-redefining, big-themed horror drama, literally and figuratively incendiary.
