mother! review

"I feel like I've just been assaulted". That's the first thing a friend of mine had to say after leaving the cinema following mother!, and it's also as accurate a description of director Darren Aronofsky's latest as you're likely to read. It's a cruel and upsetting movie that the vast majority of people simply aren't going to enjoy, but for some, it's also going to be nothing short of one of the most powerful cinematic experiences they're likely to have this year. If you already intend to see mother!, please, stop reading this review right now and simply go see it - it's definitely a film that benefits from knowing as little as possible about it in advance, and I'd hate to colour your opinion about what mother! is actually about before you've even seen it.

Yes, it's one of those kinds of films. It's also, I think, a masterpiece.

mother! follows a young woman (not one of the characters in mother! has a name until the credits) who is living with her older husband in his house, one that she has rebuilt following a terrible fire. After a stranger claiming to be a doctor shows up at their door, the husband invites him to stay with them, much to the chagrin of the young woman. Not long afterwards, the stranger's wife shows up and starts living with them too, and before long any semblance of normalcy has been broken as the house becomes over run with people.

Naturally this is all in service of a larger allegory that I wouldn't want to spoil here, but it's worth pointing out that even without that context mother! would still make for a hugely engaging and intense experience thanks to just how great the film-making is throughout. There are maybe a handful of shots in the entire film that take place outside the house that the characters we follow throughout live in - the rest of the time we're anchored to Jennifer Lawrence, the camera rarely more than inches away from her face as we share in her experiences. Movies set all in one location tend to feel a tad claustrophobic anyway - the decision to shoot in extreme close-up only increases that effect tenfold, and it doesn't take long before the audience feel just as imprisoned by the film as Jennifer Lawrence's character does.

Lawrence is great here, giving a performance that is both vital to mother!'s success and almost certainly a career-best. There are any number of films that I've felt Lawrence has been miscast in thanks to the vulnerability she seemingly can't help but bring to roles regardless of if they require it - here, that vulnerability is downright necessary for mother! to work as well as it does, showing us her helplessness in the face of her naively trusting husband and events that soon follow. This is her film through and through and she quite frankly nails it, forcing us to empathise with her character as events unfold around her and only making the subsequent descent into chaos feel all the more immediate, all the more real, all the more genuinely frightening.

And believe me, it's quite the descent. While mother! starts off fairly slow, forcing us to sit and stew with Jennifer Lawrence's character as strangers disrespect both her and her home (audience members with any kind of anxiety about unruly house guests are going to hate these people), it only serves to make the back half of the film all the more powerful and explosive in contrast. I've tried, but words really can't do it justice - the final third or so of mother! is complete and utter insanity the likes of which I've never seen in a film before, a cacophony of violent sounds and furious images that left me both deeply in awe of the level of craft on display and completely shell-shocked by what I had just witnessed. On it's own, it would be a technically stunning piece of film - when taken alongside the aforementioned analogy that gives mother! meaning, it becomes maybe the boldest, most confrontational piece of cinema that I've ever seen, an angry and provocative work of art from a director sharply focused and operating at 100% throughout, the kind of audacious and high-profile film-making that only comes around once in a blue moon.

No, it's definitely and deliberately not a film that everyone is going to like or even tolerate (its much talked about F Cinemascore is evidence enough of that), but those who are more receptive to what mother! is doing and how it does it are going to find themselves engrossed by a film that lodges itself in your brain and simply refuses to leave. When I first left the cinema after seeing mother!, I thought it was a film that I appreciated for its craft without actually liking all that much - now, after having sat with it for a while, I think it might be both the best and quite possibly my favourite film of the year so far, one that I already can't wait to rewatch in the presence of those who don't quite know what they're in for. You aren't going to see anything else like mother! this year - in fact, you might not see anything like mother! ever again.

★★★★★

5 stars