"mother!" is no "Mama"

mother!

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem

I compare these two similarly-titled films: mother! (2017) and Mama (2013, starring Jessica Chastain), ONLY because you will find both listed in the 'horror' genre. (These two directors must have Mommy issues). As it happens, they are nothing alike, because mother! is not a horror movie at all -- it is something else altogether, something that should strike even greater fear in discerning moviegoers -- AN ALLEGORY!

And what a tiresome allegory it is! Aronofsky hits you over the head repeatedly with the blunt object of his rather obvious moral *see below for spoiler moral* much like he forces a very pregnant Jennifer Lawrence to endure being pushed, threatened and beaten throughout the endless last hour of the film. J-Law is a much better actress than this material warrants, plus she is miscast as the docile young wife who lets strangers walk all over her. Not our Katniss!

The cast credits at the end will explain much of what he is trying to get at (names are not used in the film) ... if you can make it that far.  The end credits are the best part of the movie, which is never a good sign.

Many will try to champion the film as Serious! Ambitious! and It Will Make You Think! A good test of whether you are up for the challenge is your reaction to Terence Malick's "Tree of Life." I was on the fence, but Tree's ambitions were thought-out and well-executed, if not always successful. mother! is a mess.

If you want to see a 2017 movie that tackles life-death-and-the-beyond issues on a human scale, with all the subtlety and grace that mother! lacks, see the underrated "A Ghost Story" by Texas director David Lowery (starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara). That movie will stay with you (for good reasons!)

*SPOILER CRITICISM!*

The moral I take from this two-hour, $40-million student-film experiment is (simply) that humanity ruins everything -- and true believers are the worst of humanity. 

I find this both simplistic and offensive: 1) Monty Python made the same point in a 15-minute segment of "Life of Brian"-- and did it with humor! 2) Why does every extra in the film (representing said humanity) have to be such a rude and/or violent 'dick'? Because you believe in something, that gives you the right to treat other people like shit? 3) The ending should be sickening to all Christians (esp. Catholics), if you haven't already realized that Aronofsky is willing to go all the way with his misbegotten 'allegory.'

I'm purposely ignoring the environmental message that we are destroying the planet, too, but please, go see "An Inconvenient Sequel" for that message.