Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER! (Receives rare F CinemaGrade)

If you have seen MOTHER!, how would you rate it?


  • Total voters
    45
Following the main character, Javier Bardem, the moral of the story is that God needs humanity to fuck up in order to create and in order to love. LMAO. Incomprehensible.

And if God ISN'T the main character, that's even dumber.


I'm sorry but there are just so many things wrong with this movie from so many perspectives - I know I've elaborated already but I read Aronofsky's explanation and even more things occurred to me because I let it back in my head.

0/10, still, even with the explanation.
 
lmao @ Solaris getting an 'F' -- ridiculous. WAY better than Mother!
 
I love polarizing movies. Because either way, if you like it or not, it incites real emotions.

agree with this for all of Aronofsky's movies except this one. Analyzing it brings out my emotions because I am passionate about the truth and about God, but watching it in theater the only emotion I felt was the dull ache in my head, wondering when something sensible would happen and save the movie for my favorite director so that I could love it.

I think that's part of why I'm SO offended talking about it/thinking about it -- Aronofsky is my favorite director and like... has imprinted on my life in a major fucking way, so for me to be where I'm at now in my life and for him to produce THIS movie. Awful.


But it makes sense, there are no human idols. God can use people in special ways but they are all flawed.
 
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.

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.
Sounds incredibly pretentious.
if Nature gave birth to a baby then that baby wouldn't be JC. Was JC depicted? What would the baby represent? Water?
 
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!

No way mother fits on this list. It's bad, but not Eye Of The Beholder bad. There are universal bombs, like UWE Boll movies and then movies that are a taste thing. I know people that HATE Silver Linings Playbook, but I loved it. I know people loved Independence Day but I hated it.
 
No way mother fits on this list. It's bad, but not Eye Of The Beholder bad. There are universal bombs, like UWE Boll movies and then movies that are a taste thing. I know people that HATE Silver Linings Playbook, but I loved it. I know people loved Independence Day but I hated it.

Bruh, come back and talk to me when you don't hate Independence Day anymore. . .
 
If the symbolic idea can't be divined from the film itself, and you have to have the director explain it to you, then is the film really a success?

I'd say no. It's just interesting to me that Max seems to have these takes on everything. I get that he's talented but apparently he's smarter than everyone else and sees what most people don't.
 
I'd say no. It's just interesting to me that Max seems to have these takes on everything. I get that he's talented but apparently he's smarter than everyone else and sees what most people don't.

I don't even know who he is, frankly.
 
It intrigued me but then it just got way too over to top to take seriously and then I checked out entirely.
 
For JLaw's sake, I hope the spy flick she's releasing next year does well. She hasn't had a real hit since Hunger Games finished. Passengers had mediocre reviews and box office, now this. She needs to hit a home run.
 
Would love to post up a pic of Jennifer lawrence with a load blown on her face just because ...but I would get banned
 
There's a more recent movie from Korea called MOTHER. There was a MOTHER in the 90s, but I find it hard to believe Albert Brooks would sleep with Debbie Reynolds, although I admit he'd be weird if he did.

I wonder if you might be thinking of two films and conflating them, PECKER and SPANKING THE MONKEY.


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recent Korean movie mother was great
 
If the symbolic idea can't be divined from the film itself, and you have to have the director explain it to you, then is the film really a success?
Yeah, I felt this way with Only God Forgives. I was kind of grasping the subtexts but failed to see it woven throughout the narrative. An explanation later was enlightening, but then, its a failed experiment, isn't it?
 
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