Mother! was... completely insane.
This feels like Aronofsky's reward for Noah. There doesn't seem to be an ounce of studio restraint touching a single frame of this film. It starts off feeling like a home invasion thriller but eventually reveals itself as an on the nose allegory for climate change that uses biblical imagery to shock the viewer. The themes are messy due to the sheer amount of striking imagery and references being made the most obvious being biblical references, especially Genesis.
This highly unconventional film is a messy experience to put it mildly. Far more is being thrown at the viewer than they could hope to keep up with. You experience the majority of the film from Mother's (Jennifer Lawrence) perspective usually through extreme close ups on her face or over her shoulder follow shots. This keeps the audience confined to her experience which is delivered effectively with a strong performance that gives the audience something to latch onto in this slippery experience. It's certainly a challenging and frustrating experience at points but I think as an experiment in film-making it has artistic merit.
I would recommend this to art film geeks if they don't mind the lack of subtlety but kinda doubt general audiences will find anything but frustration here as all the conventions of traditional storytelling are largely ignored. If you're up for something different, this is certainly that.
6/10 In case you thought Black Swan was too subtle.
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