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Is it the only one you've seen?
Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER! (Receives rare F CinemaGrade)
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Is it the only one you've seen?
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think of it this way - darren and this movie are the devil. Save your soul and dont be tempted.
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I decided I'm not wasting the money.
I heard there was a disturbing and violent final scene, can someone spoiler it for me?
I heard there was a disturbing and violent final scene, can someone spoiler it for me?
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Sure
The film is essentially a religious allegory. In the early stages, it seems more like a thriller with a wife who greatly values privacy in her husband's remote country home suddenly having to deal with encroachments from two houseguests with no boundaries. But by the midpoint it becomes clear that Pfeiffer and Ed Harris are meant to represent Adam and Eve, their two sons are meant to represent Cain and Abel, Bardem is God and JLaw is Mother Nature or Mother Earth or what have you. The idyllic home is Earth and its very existence is threatened by the arrival of man.
So you have two major sequences where an influx of humans start to fuck with the house. In the first one, a bunch of friends and family members of Pfeiffer's and Harris' arrive for an impromptu funeral. Lawrence is horrified as they disobey her rules, explore the house with reckless abandon, and even cause damage to the foundation of the house. This damage comes in the way of two idiots sitting on a sink counter that she continually warned them was not braced. Water starts to flood the room, Lawrence starts screaming and the people flee. So it is like a Great Flood-esque reboot of the Noah persuasion.
But then Bardem, who is a poet that had writer's block, starts writing again when Lawrence's character becomes pregnant. The resuming of his creative prowess leads to another influx of humans who basically are obsessed with his work and treat him with outright reverence and worship. Lawrence's character is almost due at this point when the masses arrive to see Bardem as their home. This is the sequence people are talking about. As she starts to see her home overrun by people, she wanders from room to room where she finds increasingly chaotic behavior. In one room, people are having a rave. In another, they are looting. On the staircase, they are lined up waiting to be anointed by a follower of the poet. In yet another, people are being sacrificed (execution style) by Kristen Wiig no less who as Bardem's publicist is presumably meant to be some sort of emissary.
Swat cops arrive and try to maintain order but bullets are flying and bodies are dropping. Lawrence is on the verge of giving birth and Bardem takes her to a room upstairs away from the madness. She gives birth to a son and Bardem says he wants to hold the baby. Lawrence refuses, but he sits across from her stoically, clearly waiting for a moment where he can take the child. She falls asleep and he does just that, handing the infant over to the crowd which sacrifices him. Lawrence is absolutely horrified that they did this and that Bardem allowed it to happen. Bardem tries to tell her though that the important thing is that they forgive the people because they are penitent. He points out that they are hanging their heads and crying. She refuses and grabs a shard of glass and starts shanking and slicing people like she's in a GOT episode. One of them gets the drop on her though and knocks her off her feet and she gets pummeled by the crowd while having expletives hurled at her.
Bardem stops the vicious beating, and she then goes to the boiler room in the basement, lets oil spill all over the floor and lights the house up, causing another apocalyptic event that leads to the destruction of the people in the home but prompts Bardem to start the same cycle of creation all over again.
So you have two major sequences where an influx of humans start to fuck with the house. In the first one, a bunch of friends and family members of Pfeiffer's and Harris' arrive for an impromptu funeral. Lawrence is horrified as they disobey her rules, explore the house with reckless abandon, and even cause damage to the foundation of the house. This damage comes in the way of two idiots sitting on a sink counter that she continually warned them was not braced. Water starts to flood the room, Lawrence starts screaming and the people flee. So it is like a Great Flood-esque reboot of the Noah persuasion.
But then Bardem, who is a poet that had writer's block, starts writing again when Lawrence's character becomes pregnant. The resuming of his creative prowess leads to another influx of humans who basically are obsessed with his work and treat him with outright reverence and worship. Lawrence's character is almost due at this point when the masses arrive to see Bardem as their home. This is the sequence people are talking about. As she starts to see her home overrun by people, she wanders from room to room where she finds increasingly chaotic behavior. In one room, people are having a rave. In another, they are looting. On the staircase, they are lined up waiting to be anointed by a follower of the poet. In yet another, people are being sacrificed (execution style) by Kristen Wiig no less who as Bardem's publicist is presumably meant to be some sort of emissary.
Swat cops arrive and try to maintain order but bullets are flying and bodies are dropping. Lawrence is on the verge of giving birth and Bardem takes her to a room upstairs away from the madness. She gives birth to a son and Bardem says he wants to hold the baby. Lawrence refuses, but he sits across from her stoically, clearly waiting for a moment where he can take the child. She falls asleep and he does just that, handing the infant over to the crowd which sacrifices him. Lawrence is absolutely horrified that they did this and that Bardem allowed it to happen. Bardem tries to tell her though that the important thing is that they forgive the people because they are penitent. He points out that they are hanging their heads and crying. She refuses and grabs a shard of glass and starts shanking and slicing people like she's in a GOT episode. One of them gets the drop on her though and knocks her off her feet and she gets pummeled by the crowd while having expletives hurled at her.
Bardem stops the vicious beating, and she then goes to the boiler room in the basement, lets oil spill all over the floor and lights the house up, causing another apocalyptic event that leads to the destruction of the people in the home but prompts Bardem to start the same cycle of creation all over again.
The fate of their child is basically going to offend everybody in the room- allegory or not. I didn't go into complete detail as to how that is depicted because I really don't even want to think about it. Heinous to see. I'm not easily put off by things on movies or tv but that moment was very tough to watch and upsetting.
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i think i mentioned that people should go in without knowing what the film is about, and i definitely still feel that way.
and i actually don't think you went in blind, but you went in having seen the trailer and expecting the movie to progress a certain way. i think actually going in with expectations is more of a guarantee that you'll end up disappointed and frustrated.
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And that is what everyone is going to do - see the trailer and think it is something else because the trailer depicts something that it is not. And that will annoy and probably piss people off.
So, yes I went in blind - by blind I mean did not do anything other watch the film based on what I saw from trailer and from that expected something different because I was lead to believe the movie was one thing because of the trailer.
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Probably my favorite movie of the year so far. I don't want to say much because it's still resonating. Man, there's a lot to think about with this movie. 9/10
Questions in spoiler 2
I got it halfway through and it blew my mind. I'm an atheist, but still was taught A LOT about the bible. This was an amazing rendition of it.
Questions in spoiler 2
Did Abel's blood hole lead to the door to hell? That's why half of the new testament followers worshipped it over The Poet (God), right?
Also, was Kristin Wiig Satan or just one of the choirs of angles against god? If so, was the mother considered Satan for burning everything and causing the end? At one point they checked her and said she was an Angel, which Lucifer was. Kristen Wiig could have also been someone who was trying to stop the apocalypse or the one trying to speed it up. I'm still conflicted
Also, was that adams heart in the toilet? I don't get the reference if it is one. I get the rib reference, but I don't understand him throwing up his heart. If that was his heart.
Also, was Kristin Wiig Satan or just one of the choirs of angles against god? If so, was the mother considered Satan for burning everything and causing the end? At one point they checked her and said she was an Angel, which Lucifer was. Kristen Wiig could have also been someone who was trying to stop the apocalypse or the one trying to speed it up. I'm still conflicted
Also, was that adams heart in the toilet? I don't get the reference if it is one. I get the rib reference, but I don't understand him throwing up his heart. If that was his heart.
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yeah, exactly. i avoided the trailers heading into the movie and i'm glad i did.
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Update: September 17, 2017
Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER! Banished to Infamous F CinemaScore Club
Paramount always knew that Darren Aronofsky's mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, would provoke strong responses, but the studio surely never imagined the elevated psychological horror-thriller would receive an F CinemaScore from U.S. moviegoers.
Only a dozen or so movies have been slapped with the failing grade in modern times. In most cases, those films, hobbled by poor word of mouth, were never able to bust out of detention and clear more than $15 million, if that, at the domestic box office. The most notable exception is fellow Paramount horror pic The Devil Inside (2012), which opened to $33.7 million on its way to topping out at $53.3 million in North America and $101.8 million globally.
mother! received the grade on Friday as it opened in theaters across North America after making high-profile stops at the Venice and Toronto film festivals. It opened to a dismal $7.5 million from 2,368 theaters, the worst wide launch of Lawrence's career.
While mother! has divided critics, there were enough good reviews to garner the $30 million movie a 68 percent "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Over the weekend, some in Hollywood questioned the disparity between the pic's Rotten Tomatoes ranking and the CinemaScore.
"This is an interesting case of what appears to be a total disconnect between the critics, who have been fairly receptive, and audiences who are collectively giving mother! their unanimous seal of disapproval with some of the lowest audience scores seen for a wide release film," said comScore's Paul Dergarabedian, whose firm also conducts exit polling. "The trailer paints a very strange and purposely equivocal portrait of the film and audiences who may have been expecting one type of movie-going experience got something quite different and have chosen to scold the film with a stunningly low approval rating."
A number of the releases garnering an F grade have made up some ground offshore, and mother! hopes to to do the same. Killing Them Softly (2012), starring Brad Pitt, opened to $6.8 million before topping out at a forgettable $15 million domestically. The crime-thriller did more business overseas, grossing $22.9 million abroad for a global total of $37.9 million. The Box (2009), starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, earned $15.1 million domestically and $33.3 million worldwide.
Aronofsky isn't the first acclaimed director to see one of his films sent to the back of the class. William Friedkin's horror pic Bug (2007); Steven Soderbergh's Solaris (2002), starring George Clooney; and Robert Altman's romantic ensemble comedy Dr. T and the Women (2000) also garnered an F.
Like mother!, The Box and Bug, most movies targeted for the F CinemaScore club are horror titles. Horror tends to score lower grades than other genres yet still succeed (almost all of Paramount's Paranormal Activity films received some variation of a C CinemaScore). Exceptions to this rule include Jordan Peele's 2017 hit Get Out and both Conjuring films, all of which scared up an A-.
Other films in the F CinemaScore club include Silent House (2012), Disaster Movie (2005), Wolf Creek (2005) and Darkness (2004).
Darren Aronofsky's 'mother!' Banished to Infamous F CinemaScore Club
Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER! Banished to Infamous F CinemaScore Club
Paramount always knew that Darren Aronofsky's mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, would provoke strong responses, but the studio surely never imagined the elevated psychological horror-thriller would receive an F CinemaScore from U.S. moviegoers.
Only a dozen or so movies have been slapped with the failing grade in modern times. In most cases, those films, hobbled by poor word of mouth, were never able to bust out of detention and clear more than $15 million, if that, at the domestic box office. The most notable exception is fellow Paramount horror pic The Devil Inside (2012), which opened to $33.7 million on its way to topping out at $53.3 million in North America and $101.8 million globally.
mother! received the grade on Friday as it opened in theaters across North America after making high-profile stops at the Venice and Toronto film festivals. It opened to a dismal $7.5 million from 2,368 theaters, the worst wide launch of Lawrence's career.
While mother! has divided critics, there were enough good reviews to garner the $30 million movie a 68 percent "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Over the weekend, some in Hollywood questioned the disparity between the pic's Rotten Tomatoes ranking and the CinemaScore.
"This is an interesting case of what appears to be a total disconnect between the critics, who have been fairly receptive, and audiences who are collectively giving mother! their unanimous seal of disapproval with some of the lowest audience scores seen for a wide release film," said comScore's Paul Dergarabedian, whose firm also conducts exit polling. "The trailer paints a very strange and purposely equivocal portrait of the film and audiences who may have been expecting one type of movie-going experience got something quite different and have chosen to scold the film with a stunningly low approval rating."
A number of the releases garnering an F grade have made up some ground offshore, and mother! hopes to to do the same. Killing Them Softly (2012), starring Brad Pitt, opened to $6.8 million before topping out at a forgettable $15 million domestically. The crime-thriller did more business overseas, grossing $22.9 million abroad for a global total of $37.9 million. The Box (2009), starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, earned $15.1 million domestically and $33.3 million worldwide.
Aronofsky isn't the first acclaimed director to see one of his films sent to the back of the class. William Friedkin's horror pic Bug (2007); Steven Soderbergh's Solaris (2002), starring George Clooney; and Robert Altman's romantic ensemble comedy Dr. T and the Women (2000) also garnered an F.
Like mother!, The Box and Bug, most movies targeted for the F CinemaScore club are horror titles. Horror tends to score lower grades than other genres yet still succeed (almost all of Paramount's Paranormal Activity films received some variation of a C CinemaScore). Exceptions to this rule include Jordan Peele's 2017 hit Get Out and both Conjuring films, all of which scared up an A-.
Other films in the F CinemaScore club include Silent House (2012), Disaster Movie (2005), Wolf Creek (2005) and Darkness (2004).
Darren Aronofsky's 'mother!' Banished to Infamous F CinemaScore Club
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Update: September 17, 2017
Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER!, Devoured by IT, Debuts to Meager $7.5 Million
Darren Aronofsky's mother! stalled in its domestic box-office debut, grossing an estimated $7.5 million from 2,368 theaters after receiving a rare F CinemaScore and facing competition from the blockbuster It.
mother!, an elevated psychological horror-thriller, supplanted The House at the End of the Street ($12.3 million) to mark the lowest nationwide launch of Jennifer Lawrence's career. The Paramount title, which costed $30 million to produce, came in No. 3 over the weekend behind It and new offering American Assassin. (In a sign that summer is over, all three titles are rated R.)
Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema's It continued to make history in its second weekend, declining a scant 51 percent to $60 million from 4,103 theaters, the biggest sophomore outing ever for a horror title.
Heading into the weekend, American Assassin held only a slight edge over mother! according to tracking. But throughout the weekend, mother! continued to slip.
Getting slapped with an F CinemaScore on Friday didn't help matters (only a dozen or so movies have ever received the failing grade) for mother! The movie skewed older, with 52 percent of the audience over the age of 35, including 22 percent over 50. Comps to Aronofsky's previous prestige films, including 2010's Black Swan, are tough since they launched in select theaters before expanding, prompting some to question why Paramount opened mother! nationwide.
From a script by Aronofsky, mother! is an allegorical tale about a married couple named mother (Lawrence) and Him (Bardem) whose tranquil existence is tested when two mysterious strangers — man (Ed Harris) and woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) — show up at their country Victorian home to meet Bardem's character, a poet gripped by writer's block.
"This movie is very audacious and brave. You are talking about a director at the top of his game, and an actress at the top her game. They made a movie that was intended to be bold," says Paramount worldwide president of marketing and distribution Megan Colligan. "Everyone wants original filmmaking, and everyone celebrates Netflix when they tell a story no one else wants to tell. This is our version. We don't want all movies to be safe. And it's okay if some people don't like it."
Weekend Box Office: 'It' Devours Darren Aronofsky's 'mother!' With $60 Million
Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER!, Devoured by IT, Debuts to Meager $7.5 Million
Darren Aronofsky's mother! stalled in its domestic box-office debut, grossing an estimated $7.5 million from 2,368 theaters after receiving a rare F CinemaScore and facing competition from the blockbuster It.
mother!, an elevated psychological horror-thriller, supplanted The House at the End of the Street ($12.3 million) to mark the lowest nationwide launch of Jennifer Lawrence's career. The Paramount title, which costed $30 million to produce, came in No. 3 over the weekend behind It and new offering American Assassin. (In a sign that summer is over, all three titles are rated R.)
Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema's It continued to make history in its second weekend, declining a scant 51 percent to $60 million from 4,103 theaters, the biggest sophomore outing ever for a horror title.
Heading into the weekend, American Assassin held only a slight edge over mother! according to tracking. But throughout the weekend, mother! continued to slip.
Getting slapped with an F CinemaScore on Friday didn't help matters (only a dozen or so movies have ever received the failing grade) for mother! The movie skewed older, with 52 percent of the audience over the age of 35, including 22 percent over 50. Comps to Aronofsky's previous prestige films, including 2010's Black Swan, are tough since they launched in select theaters before expanding, prompting some to question why Paramount opened mother! nationwide.
From a script by Aronofsky, mother! is an allegorical tale about a married couple named mother (Lawrence) and Him (Bardem) whose tranquil existence is tested when two mysterious strangers — man (Ed Harris) and woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) — show up at their country Victorian home to meet Bardem's character, a poet gripped by writer's block.
"This movie is very audacious and brave. You are talking about a director at the top of his game, and an actress at the top her game. They made a movie that was intended to be bold," says Paramount worldwide president of marketing and distribution Megan Colligan. "Everyone wants original filmmaking, and everyone celebrates Netflix when they tell a story no one else wants to tell. This is our version. We don't want all movies to be safe. And it's okay if some people don't like it."
Weekend Box Office: 'It' Devours Darren Aronofsky's 'mother!' With $60 Million
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Looks like another Anronofsky 'love it or hate it' event.
I really love a lot of this guy's work, so looking forward to checking it out in the theater this week.
I really love a lot of this guy's work, so looking forward to checking it out in the theater this week.
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only judging by the couple of polls i've seen, it seems like the audience reaction is roughly in line with the critics and rotten tomatoes with sherdog's average being around 60% (small sample size though) and reddit's around 69%. the narrative that this is bombing with audiences doesn't really seem to match that, but there's obviously a difference in online polls regarding a movie and actual in-person research.
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If anyone wants to know what the 19 movies to receive an F CinemaScore are, here's your list:
Alone in the Dark
The Box
Bug
Darkness
The Devil Inside
Disaster Movie
Doctor T and the Women
Eye of the Beholder
Fear Dot Com
I Know Who Killed Me
In the Cut
Killing Them Softly
Lost Souls
Lucky Numbers
Silent House
Solaris
The Wicker Man
Wolf Creek
mother!
Alone in the Dark
The Box
Bug
Darkness
The Devil Inside
Disaster Movie
Doctor T and the Women
Eye of the Beholder
Fear Dot Com
I Know Who Killed Me
In the Cut
Killing Them Softly
Lost Souls
Lucky Numbers
Silent House
Solaris
The Wicker Man
Wolf Creek
mother!
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Its a well made film. But by God(pun intended) it feels like your senses have been mugged. This is going on my seen it. Don't have to see it again list. Se7en you now have company.
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Bug was a great movie and Solaris wasn't that bad, so Cinescore isn't a definitive fail.
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Wolf Creek and Killing them Softly were awesome.
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