Mother! My impressions of a movie that hates you

Let this serve as a warning to watch mother! at your own risk.

mother! is a movie that portrays itself via trailer as a sinister psychological thriller about a couple, their creepy house guests, and a rapid descent into paranoia and insanity. This is mostly true, though I would argue that the "thriller" part isn't present.

The reality is that I was fascinated for the first third to half of the movie, seeing the house guests enter into this already tense home and behave absolutely appallingly. I wanted to see where this movie would go. It goes off the rails in spectacular fashion, leaving a few neat hooks to grab onto as I tried to figure out the meaning behind everything while it spins out of control.

Then the second part begins. The plot is quickly forgotten as the movie reaches an insane crescendo of total bullshit. Every scene no longer has a point, only heavy handed imagery to hammer it's metaphor into your skull. No scenes link together in any meaningful way, the movie darts from scene to scene as it gets progressively more and more hellish.

After it's dropped any semblance of actual development, we get a short break from the insanity. Followed by the one of the most disturbing scenes I've seen in a wide release film. And I don't mean disturbing like "I'm going to have nightmares about clowns" kind of disturbing, or even the "torture-porn" genre of horror movies like Saw or Hostel. I mean it is conceptually abhorrent in a way that I have never been confronted by and I hope I never have to consider again. These scenes alone are making me write this. I genuinely do not want anyone to hurt themselves by watching this.

This movie is not for the faint of heart and I can only recommend that the average movie goer should skip this. Leave it to the cinephiles.

That concludes my spoiler free warning/review of mother! Let me know what you think!

What follows is my own plot analysis and will be full of spoilers. Read at your own risk.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!

It's weird to me, this movie didn't shock me in the slightest. At the end of the day, it just made me laugh at how hard it was trying to be shocking. I had the similar reaction to the unrated version of Nymphomaniac, during the abortion scene. It goes so hard on shocking imagery that it warps around and become silly to me.

I'm super easily shocked too. I couldn't handle The Green Room and had to watch it in two sittings.

I'm not trying to dismiss anyone being uncomfortable with what is being shown in the movie. It's obviously what Aronofsky is going for, but it felt to me like the movie had more in common with Peter Jackson's Braindead (in that it just escalate violence against its main character to the extreme) without acknowledging how dumb everything is than it has with actual psychological horror.

The sexual violence felt just unnecessary, like it often does. A director reaching for the limits without really dealing with its implications.

I didn't like the movie much :P.

Maybe spoiler block that first sentence? I don't plan on seeing this movie and I've already spoiled it for myself but I don't think that was in any of the marketing or anything.

Bizarre. I didn't read the spoilers, but I'd heard about people absolutely slamming this movie. I've liked everything I've seen of Darren Aronofsky before (even Noah, especially The Fountain, haven't seen the Wrestler yet), so hearing about it being completely nonsensical and essentially "torture porn" threw me for a real loop.

He's certainly dealt with (and vividly portrayed) fucked up stuff before, so I can imagine him doing those things you listed and alluded to being regarded as particularly disquieting and repugnant (and not inaccurately so). Yeesh. I guess I'm duly warned going in. I can deal with (and potentially appreciate) things getting progressivey more and more hellish, but "torture porn" stuff like Hostel I just find irritating.

@justin258: Good call, I just removed it entirely. It was redundant with the spoiler block later anyway.

@theht: Hey. Watch The Wrestler.

I wasn't really interested in seeing the movie anyway, from the trailer. But after reading the spoilers here I'm super extra not interested.

I saw a review of this movie that actually really liked it and that was the first I had heard of it. He didn't spoil anything and I thought it sounded interesting, but the reviewer did hint that there was some pretty fucked up stuff going on. Curiosity got the better of me and I looked it up and then I just thought "nah, there's nothing here for me".

Okay, so I saw a poster of this film a few days prior to it getting heavy criticism. I didn't really care, so I don't read further other than knowing it has a rare F rating or whatever. I don't know why, but I'm guessing it's because people didn't understand it or something? I don't know. I just watched the trailer, seemed kind of interesting, then (because I don't care about seeing the movie that much) I watched the spoiler and what it all means. Basically, someone can make a short film of a person walking on a sidewalk near some water, reading a bible and eating a Big Mac, and instead of throwing his McDonald's wrapper away in the trash next to him, he throws it in the bay over a railing, and it'd get the basics of the movie's allegories down. This is just, artsier than that I guess.

I went in blind and came out liking it. It can be a bit heavy handed, but really just goes off the wall in a way that totally held my attention. It was a strange ass ride and I can totally appreciate that when movies seem to be taking so little risks now. I certainly see why it could be so divisive though.

Honestly, I tend to not like horror movies. After actually reading the plot synopsis and then reading what the movie is about, it sounds absolutely crazy and now I want to see it.

I get being upset with misleading trailers. I have mixed feelings about trailers that are used this way.

I really liked it.

So yeah, after listening to Half in the Bag for mother! I am kinda glad that I skipped out on it. It wants to be a clever film, but doesn't have a clear message other than, "Humans are bad to the Earth."

This sounds like a movie made by a first-year film student who just saw An Inconvenient Truth and really wants to tell everyone about it.

Also, every time a director tries to pull the "this movie is actually about...." bullshit, I'm out. That is the most vapid, insufferable garbage, and I can't recall a single instance when it didn't come off as douchey/pretentious. It's creatively bankrupt to have caricatures instead of characters and to frame their actions entirely around what they're supposed to "represent", and attempts to present that shit as some deep intellect are as annoying as they are eye-roll-inducing.

For me, this is a hard pass. Thanks for the heads-up, OP.

I haven't seen it yet, I intend to, but my impression from what I've heard has been that it's basically what would happen if you tried to make a big budget, less artsy Begotten. The two seem like they'd make a hell of a midnight double feature.

Regarding the film being shocking with no substance, I've always felt the same about Requiem for a Dream. If you compared it to Trainspotting, the other major "life of a drug addict" film, Trainspotting tells a story of the entire situation of drug usage, which is why some (incorrectly) accused it of glorifying drug usage. Requiem for a Dream feels like a PSA, in particular one of those nasty gory Canadian ones with a "scare them straight" mentality. Extraordinarily well crafted in terms of filmmaking, but too on the nose and with too narrow a focus.

I'm still super interested in seeing this, my love of Black Swan has me locked in at this point, but my expectations have been adjusted since my initial excitement. I'm now prepared for Requiem Aronofsky rather than Black Swan Aronofsky.

I'll report back once I've seen it.

This film is incredible. So tense, excellently shot, great performances and the story, for what it is, was interesting and unique.

To be honest, I didn't get the religious angle until I came back and started reading other people's opinions on the film. I thought it was about Men using women for their own games until it destroys the muse.

It’s certainly not for everyone but I really loved it.

OK, if I'm the dude who thought episode 8 of the new Twin Peaks was the best thing to ever be broadcast on TV am I gonna like this film? For the record I thought Requiem was total dog shit, Black Swan was just OK, and I haven't seen any other Aronofsky stuff.

This sounds like Von Trier-level arthouse horror. Hard pass.

@planetfunksquad: It has less...story than those (IMO fantastic) films. But since you aren't a fan of his other films though, maybe don't watch it.

I liked it a lot. It seems like Aronofsky's attempt number 2 at the ideas he was exploring in Noah, but this time at a way smaller scale and budget presumably because that afforded him more creative control. Noah felt like to me it was filled with studio meddling trying to turn it into a Lord of the Rings style movie or something. mother! felt like an old Roman Polanski thriller for the first half then was just batshit insanity for the second. First half is definitely better but I still enjoyed marveling at how fucking nuts it was and the fact that something like this was playing in a regular movie theater.

It's also strange that the people are split in half on this movie thinking either the allegory was way too blunt and heavy handed or it completely flying over there head and not seeing it at all. I guess a lot of people aren't familiar with the stories of the bible?

I read the spoiler block. That sounds hilarious and now I kinda want to see it in the same way I wanted to see The Room.

I didn't really see the biblical angle until I really considered the role of the house guests. The whole first half makes a lot more sense if you take it to be the story of the creation and fall from Grace of Man.