Mother!

An excellently driven absurd thriller that works both as a portrait of an unhealthy relationship, as well as a parable of the relationship of humankind and the figure of the mother or Planet Earth. The second half, unfortunately, drowns into biblical allegories that are literally hair-pulling so even a moron would understand them, which radically affects the thought-provoking aspect. Yeah, God is a smug douchebag, the Scriptures are misinterpreted nonsense, poor life-giving Mother Earth, and humans are idiots… but what else? In the details and in the conclusion, that’s effective, but the impression of a smart film that has something to say vanishes. That said, the intention is commendable, sure. 7/10 (17/10/2017)

There are said to be directors whose unsuccessful films are also worth watching. Aronofsky is lucky in this regard, because his last successful film was The Wrestler. Mother! (how to say it and not offend someone) is a crackling banal story, which you can fit into a few textbook clichés. Darren was able to fill it with chubby and swollen vaginal-biblical symbols, giving all those B-movie replicas the appearance of almost cosmic validity. And, because the first half is harmless and leads nowhere – and it keeps repeating one and the same figure - he has prepared for the finale a delirious journey through the history of violence and a religiosity course for beginners. This director obviously feels like a virtuoso poet, but in reality he's just a stubborn plasterer and handyman. And his paradise gazebo falls apart under his hands. Jennifer Lawrence is not irritating this time. She is completely given herself over to a puppeteer who has no idea why all the threads are wrong and where they actually lead. An ode to the fate of a woman, a mother? Weh. (20/10/2017)

Bullshit. Yeah, I could express my thoughts in a more subtle and laconic way, i.e., that it’s simply uselessness. So why did I give it one star? For the little film within the film with Michelle. We hadn't seen her playing the role of the sassy little MILF (supposedly the biblical Eve) for a long time, which in and of itself was a small gig in spite of everything and all her teammates. (14/11/2017)

An admirable creative intention to express a powerful message, carried out in an overly abstract way. But why not? The focus on the main character’s feelings in the first half of the film is so formally precise and psychologically engaging that few living directors would be able to pull it off. Darren Aronofsky knows that and therefore has the courage to go so wild in the second half, like a painter who spontaneously moves his brush, forming a line that is disturbing at first glance but then becomes a unique, valuable feature of the work as a whole. I accept and acknowledge this, and I am delightfully intoxicated with the final impression of the film. (26/11/2017)

In stronger moments, the intensity of Black Swan or the unpleasantness and suggestiveness deeply ingrained under the skin of Requiem for a Dream are not lacking. However, whatever Darren Aronofsky wanted to say, all the allegory gets lost in an endless loop. The unsuccessful attempt to protect one's own privacy becomes so irritating after a while that with every new character, I just shook my head with increasing emphasis. The way the whole thing stagnates in the last act is so transparent, unnecessary, and (worst of all) lazily written that I just checked off the obligatory biblical references and became more and more frustrated with how Jennifer Lawrence gives absolutely brilliant performances, but it is all essentially in vain. It scares me that someone who was able to develop a simple chain of thoughts into the masterpiece named The Fountain a decade earlier now gives birth to an idea that obviously wants to flourish on multiple levels, then only lets it flow in just one. Noah may have been a disappointment, but Mother! is the boundary between missing the mark and losing yourself. (18/10/2017)