mother!

mother!

Rating: 8/10

I'm having a love-hate relationship with Darren Aronofsky's mother! - torn between deciding whether this is one of the best and thought-provoking movie in 2017 or maybe the worst. There's no denying that mother! is hard to fathom from the beginning 'til the end but after giving much thought on the train ride back home, I finally put the pieces together and boy was I happy. 

If you're hoping to enjoy a horror/supernatural movie as portrayed by the trailers and promos, it's better if you don't watch. Heck, I'm still not sure if the scenes were terrifying enough to be a horror flick but as I googled, mother! turns out to be a drama/mystery genre with little to no suspenseful element in it.

mother! builds its weird atmosphere from the opening sequence, where we see Him (Javier Bardem) putting on a stone and the whole house was brought back to life from ashes. And there lies  Her (Jennifer Lawrence) on the bed, waking up from sleep.

This scene gives us a view of what this movie is going to be- a weird, fantasy-ish movie about a reclusive couple living in a remote house in the middle of nowhere. And from that, arrive the Man (Ed Harris) and Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer), a couple who weren't really invited to their house, especially by Her. 

And from that moment, things turned out to be crazy. Not only the Woman was a little bit rude to the naive and innocent of JLaw's character, but Javier Bardem tends to neglect her, hanging out with the Man more than his wife. This caused a little tension for Her, having to bear the presence of two annoying strangers who basically wouldn't leave her house while also realising a strange occurring in the structure of her house.

And when I thought that's the craziest point this movie could go, the uninvited couple showed up with families and friends, treating the house as if it is theirs and wouldn't leave despite being admonished by JLaw. It is worth noting that when JLaw said "This is my house" the guests laughed as if she was insane to claim such thing. 

SPOILER ALERT

So as I was pondering on that and Javier Bardem's statement "I am a creator" and also the repulsive ending scene of the movie, I came to the realisation that JLaw's Her is the embodiment of mother nature while Javier Bardem's Him could be... God (I guess). AND THE MAN AND WOMAN ARE ADAM AND EVE!

Okay maybe not. But this is where I started to like mother! - when I finally made sense of what I was watching for the entire 120 minutes. The guests were us humans who practically invaded mother nature's home hence the silly laugh on their faces when JLaw claimed that this is her house. Near the end of the movie, we could see the destruction made by this "guests" on her house, the slaughters and damages done by humans since the beginning of humanity.

mother! is definitely not have a straightforward plot like Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, and this could be why it was named the worst movie of the year but do give it a try. It might get you thinking of how fucked-up us humans are in deteriorating the only home we have (unless you believe that we'll be living in Mars soon) and how we have fucked mother nature (not literally lol).

Poor JLaw.

Watch this if you like: to be honest, I don't know. mother! is one of a kind.