mother!

mother! is scarier than IT, which I saw the week before, and more uncomfortable than Good Time, which I saw immediately after Darren Aronofsky's seventh feature-length film. Mother! certainly hits closer to home in awful ways.

But between moments of dolorousness, I couldn't help but connect this film to sketch comedy. With sketch, you immediately need to ground your scene in reality. Shortly after you ground your scene, you then want to introduce something unusual, providing the "game." The game is then heightened periodically to increase the stakes and allow you to go bigger with the jokes. In a way, Mother! felt like a two-hour-long comedy sketch. There certainly are humorous moments in the film, both intentional and unintentional. No one is calling this a perfect film, and it can be too "on the nose" at times. 

It's also risky to wade in the waters of "artist/creation"symbolism. The allegorical aspect of the film (which I don't love, but agree with those who see accuracy in it), isn't as obvious as theme that once an artist hands his/her creation over to someone else, it will be forever changed. I figured more people would criticize Aronofsky for pointing out the fact that audiences/critics/editors/etc. can ruin art, often after claiming co-ownership of it. I don't give a shit about Rick and Morty, but there was a story last week about how certain scumbag, misogynistic fans were doxing the female writers on the show, and were blaming them for a perceived dip in quality. This is the ugliest side of fandom and it exists with everything.

The film held my attention because, also at a surface-level, it's one of my worst nightmares to have my space taken over in the way that Jennifer Lawrence's character loses her's. Beyond feeling territorial or possessive, it's just nice to have a place where you can feel alone. Aronofsky is most successful at slowly stripping away everything that Jennifer Lawrence's character has and has to give. I love the way that most of this stripping away involves very real and common human behavior. Bad partners often use the justifications that Javier Bardem's character uses to slowly torture his wife. This film had me thinking about all of the terrible relationships out there with shitty communication. Sharing a home with someone can be very difficult. Every decision you make affects the other person in some way. When you can't pick up on the other person's needs, you're doomed to have a war zone break out.

Going back to heightening for a second, Aronofsky does this brilliantly as well. He adheres to the sketch rule of, "if this is true, what else is true?" when escalating the activity in the house. As others have pointed out, I also loved how much Aronofsky committed to this story. He takes a big swing and doesn't hold anything back. The baby scene is obviously very difficult to watch, but I admire that he included it. 

I don't necessarily feel like arguing too much with this film's detractors. One of the script's intentions is to completely alienate a majority of the audience. I appreciate that challenging aspect. It's unlike anything I've seen before and it got up in my face, so to speak, without backing down.

From time to time, I really enjoy a feeling of unease while watching a movie. Don't Look Now is one of the better examples, and while mother! may not achieve that same level of dizzying tension, it does come pretty close.