Mother! (2017)
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 121m
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson
Synopsis:
Devoted wife lovingly restores her husband's home after a fire has destroyed it. But her love is not enough for him, and he invites others into the house to admire him. They have no respect for her and what she has created, and the love dies.
Review:
Aronofsky's study in woman the giver and man the taker might have worked better if he had not overloaded it with ideas. We have the uninvited guests (cf. Harold Pinter's Birthday Party, Pacific Heights, Monty Python's Mr and Mrs Equator) and the house with a beating heart (The House the Dripped Blood, The Amityville Horror, Poltergeist), leading us up certain garden paths. Then there are little mysteries like the crystal the husband prizes, the bottle of yellow medicine the wife takes (until she mysteriously no longer needs it), the walled up heating oil store, and the foetus in the U-bend. Finally he packs in allegorical figures such as Cain and Abel, idolatry and zealotry, until we wonder whether it is all about the Fall of the first man and woman, or Jesus's despised gift of love (the woman's boy child). Meanwhile we reverse track Miss Lawrence around in tight close-up for two hours, identifying with her growing horror and impatience at the generalised disturbance of her peace, and exasperation with her feckless husband who can create only art to incite more adoration, rather than anything of practical use. By the time he explains 'I am I and You are Love' (the characters have no names), we have just about got there, that is if we have not left the theatre and got home for some peace of our own.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 121m
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson
Synopsis:
Devoted wife lovingly restores her husband's home after a fire has destroyed it. But her love is not enough for him, and he invites others into the house to admire him. They have no respect for her and what she has created, and the love dies.
Review:
Aronofsky's study in woman the giver and man the taker might have worked better if he had not overloaded it with ideas. We have the uninvited guests (cf. Harold Pinter's Birthday Party, Pacific Heights, Monty Python's Mr and Mrs Equator) and the house with a beating heart (The House the Dripped Blood, The Amityville Horror, Poltergeist), leading us up certain garden paths. Then there are little mysteries like the crystal the husband prizes, the bottle of yellow medicine the wife takes (until she mysteriously no longer needs it), the walled up heating oil store, and the foetus in the U-bend. Finally he packs in allegorical figures such as Cain and Abel, idolatry and zealotry, until we wonder whether it is all about the Fall of the first man and woman, or Jesus's despised gift of love (the woman's boy child). Meanwhile we reverse track Miss Lawrence around in tight close-up for two hours, identifying with her growing horror and impatience at the generalised disturbance of her peace, and exasperation with her feckless husband who can create only art to incite more adoration, rather than anything of practical use. By the time he explains 'I am I and You are Love' (the characters have no names), we have just about got there, that is if we have not left the theatre and got home for some peace of our own.
Country: US
Technical: col/2.35:1 121m
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson
Synopsis:
Devoted wife lovingly restores her husband's home after a fire has destroyed it. But her love is not enough for him, and he invites others into the house to admire him. They have no respect for her and what she has created, and the love dies.
Review:
Aronofsky's study in woman the giver and man the taker might have worked better if he had not overloaded it with ideas. We have the uninvited guests (cf. Harold Pinter's Birthday Party, Pacific Heights, Monty Python's Mr and Mrs Equator) and the house with a beating heart (The House the Dripped Blood, The Amityville Horror, Poltergeist), leading us up certain garden paths. Then there are little mysteries like the crystal the husband prizes, the bottle of yellow medicine the wife takes (until she mysteriously no longer needs it), the walled up heating oil store, and the foetus in the U-bend. Finally he packs in allegorical figures such as Cain and Abel, idolatry and zealotry, until we wonder whether it is all about the Fall of the first man and woman, or Jesus's despised gift of love (the woman's boy child). Meanwhile we reverse track Miss Lawrence around in tight close-up for two hours, identifying with her growing horror and impatience at the generalised disturbance of her peace, and exasperation with her feckless husband who can create only art to incite more adoration, rather than anything of practical use. By the time he explains 'I am I and You are Love' (the characters have no names), we have just about got there, that is if we have not left the theatre and got home for some peace of our own.