Mother!

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. (11/14/2017)

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. (11/26/2017)

I was pretty bored in the first half of the film. All in all, it irritated me rather than kept me on the edge of my seat. I couldn't help feeling like I was watching an invasion of barbarians into the household of normal, adaptable citizens. I kept waiting for the big twist at the end, but to my surprise, the film ended in a completely predictable way. (03/06/2018)

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. (10/18/2017)

Mother! is a film that in a way made me think again about how I should actually approach the evaluation of works of cinema and how to approach this one in particular. I could be a principled objective reviewer who doesn't care who works on a film, what they've done before, or how their outlook on life and artistic sensibilities affect me, then I'd follow the plot without emotion, trying to uncover the general processes I've consciously or subconsciously automated while watching films, and Mother! would have struck me as a big-budget creation that, in pursuit of a thoughtful philosophical point, cheaply resorts to parroting various biblical themes on which it merely hangs its model story. But I can also be a highly subjective reviewer who has both a good understanding of general narrative practices and an opinion of the actors and the director, which, if negative, can affect the experience of the film to such an extent that it’s impossible to get past being pissed off at the artistic expression of the filmmaker and enjoy the film subjectively. Or I can be a subjective viewer who doesn’t give a crap about the artistic views of the creators, and even though the film just parrots big themes, its portrayal simply draws me in and, if nothing else, shows me once again how powerfully the medium of film can communicate and create at least the illusion of big authorial ideas. Mother! is a controversial and far from perfect movie that has understandably divided the audience and raises the question of how much one is able to empathise with the narrative and accept its expression. I respect all options (a hundred people are a tribute to a hundred audience tastes), I chose mine, and it is evident from this really difficult review. 85% (12/13/2017)