I watched this at home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped. I was eager to see this, I had heard so much about it.
Writer/director Aronofsky has always said he makes a movie to leave an impression, he has to make viewers think and react. He has no desire to make a middle of the road, nice movie.
"Mother" starts off like a pretty ordinary movie, the wife wakes up, her husband is not in bed, she finds him downstairs. He is a somewhat successful author, a poet, and they live alone in a big house surrounded by a big field. We see at the very beginning the house had been almost destroyed by a fire but the Mother (as played by Jennifer Lawrence) has worked diligently to bring it back to its original condition. Not much out of the ordinary there. Her husband is Javier Bardem simply as Him.
However as the story progresses things get stranger and stranger, starting with a man, then joined by his wife, they break something valuable, their adult sons show up, they fight over jealousy, one kills the other. Adam, Eve, Abel, and Cain immediately come to mind.
As the story progresses we see more and more that Mother and the house itself represent Nature and the world, people come into it, become careless, personal pleasure trumps responsibility. Aronofsky has called himself "Godless" so he has to create his own kinds of God and he does it in his movies. This one is perhaps his clearest example so far.
Not a movie for everyone, as many of the "1" votes and unflattering reviews show, but taken as a novel viewing experience it in fact is a very interesting take on humanity. I say enjoy it for the movie-making craft if for nothing else. Don't read past the spoilers following.
SPOILERS: As the house is getting overrun with more and more we realize it strays further from a possible reality, it begins to represent all the bad things that have happened in the world. Finally disgusted with the whole thing Mother causes a furnace oil spill in the basement, ignites it, and explodes the whole house and everyone in it. She burns to a crisp but Him, representing the Creator, is unharmed. He reaches in and grabs the crystal from Mother's body, and it becomes the spark for a new beginning. We see the house re-forming and a scene identical to the opening scene where a new Mother wakes up in bed. We see her face, it is not the same one as before. The world has a new beginning.
Writer/director Aronofsky has always said he makes a movie to leave an impression, he has to make viewers think and react. He has no desire to make a middle of the road, nice movie.
"Mother" starts off like a pretty ordinary movie, the wife wakes up, her husband is not in bed, she finds him downstairs. He is a somewhat successful author, a poet, and they live alone in a big house surrounded by a big field. We see at the very beginning the house had been almost destroyed by a fire but the Mother (as played by Jennifer Lawrence) has worked diligently to bring it back to its original condition. Not much out of the ordinary there. Her husband is Javier Bardem simply as Him.
However as the story progresses things get stranger and stranger, starting with a man, then joined by his wife, they break something valuable, their adult sons show up, they fight over jealousy, one kills the other. Adam, Eve, Abel, and Cain immediately come to mind.
As the story progresses we see more and more that Mother and the house itself represent Nature and the world, people come into it, become careless, personal pleasure trumps responsibility. Aronofsky has called himself "Godless" so he has to create his own kinds of God and he does it in his movies. This one is perhaps his clearest example so far.
Not a movie for everyone, as many of the "1" votes and unflattering reviews show, but taken as a novel viewing experience it in fact is a very interesting take on humanity. I say enjoy it for the movie-making craft if for nothing else. Don't read past the spoilers following.
SPOILERS: As the house is getting overrun with more and more we realize it strays further from a possible reality, it begins to represent all the bad things that have happened in the world. Finally disgusted with the whole thing Mother causes a furnace oil spill in the basement, ignites it, and explodes the whole house and everyone in it. She burns to a crisp but Him, representing the Creator, is unharmed. He reaches in and grabs the crystal from Mother's body, and it becomes the spark for a new beginning. We see the house re-forming and a scene identical to the opening scene where a new Mother wakes up in bed. We see her face, it is not the same one as before. The world has a new beginning.