mother! (2017) ****

An annoying houseguest who won’t take their social cue to leave.  Wet clothes being dropped on a dirty floor.  The slowly rising water of a clogged toilet.  Trying to be polite to someone you can’t stand.  A person coughing incessantly.  Someone repeatedly touching something you have told them over and over again not to touch.  These are the things that get my goat.  Darren Aronofsky somehow found this out and put it all into a movie to terrify me.   

He also found out about my reoccurring nightmare in which I find a stranger in my home.  Then another.  Then another, until my house is teeming with hundreds of people.  Aronofsky found this out and filmed it.  To see that nightmare (which I have never told anyone about) projected onto a theater screen was unnerving to say the least.  mother! is a filmed nightmare plain and simple.   

It is also the scariest movie I have ever seen. 

I might be more affected by mother! because of the reasons I listed above.  I’ve always believed that Hell is other people.  Aronofsky understands this and exploits that feeling to the extreme. 

People are dumbfounded when I tell them I didn’t find It scary.  mother! scared me more than any film ever made.  This isn’t “There’s a clown hiding in the sewer”.  This isn’t like a Jason or a Michael Myers type of scary.  This isn’t “There’s a guy in a mask with an ax that wants to kill me” scary.  This is “OH MY FUCKING GOD, YOU HAVE AWAKENED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY OCD TRIGGERS AND THEY ARE FIRING LIKE BOTTLE ROCKETS!”  This is a two-hour anxiety attack.  I have never felt so drained after a movie.  I was literally shaking when it was over.   

mother! is much more than an assault on the senses.  It’s intellectually stimulating as well.  It’s full of symbolism and can be taken as an allegory for many different things.  I spent an hour in the parking lot of the theater discussing all the possible meanings of the film with my friend.  It could be a reflection on fame and celebrity, and the absence of privacy that comes with it.  It can be a metaphor for how men constantly take from women until there is no more to give (literally).  It is about how marriage eventually devolves into a staring contest and the one who flinches first gets custody of the kid (literally).  It’s about how we blindly follow idols even at the expense of our own humanity and the world around us.   

I don’t presume to know what other people go through on a daily basis, but you really get a sense from the movie and Jennifer Lawrence’s performance what it’s like to be a woman in this day and age.  It was so unnerving and eye-opening that when I got home, I apologized to my wife.  “What for?” she asked.   

“EVERYTHING”, I replied. 

We are with Lawrence every step of the way.  The only film I can really compare it to is After Hours where everything that happened to Griffin Dunne felt like it was happening to us.  When Lawrence is being pushed to her breaking point, we feel what she is feeling.  She gives a tour de force.  I can’t say I’ve ever been a “fan” of her, but I have never seen such a brave performance in my life.  Consider me Team J. Law. 

This is the kind of movie that probably should’ve opened in four theaters.  Instead, it was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public on 2,500 screens.  I love the fact that it is receiving such polar-opposite reactions.  Most people hate this film with a passion.  That’s because most people want their entertainment spoon-fed to them.  There is no spoon-feeding here, but there are several punches to the gut that will sure to leave you breathless.  This is a challenging, pummeling, in-your-face, take-no-prisoners experience.  It was designed to push your buttons.  It was designed to make you feel something.  Most people want safe entertainment, and that is fine.  The problem is that safe is often forgettable.  This is dangerous filmmaking of the highest order that will stick with you, probably forever.  Say what you will about mother! but you won’t forget it. 

Imagine being in YOUR home with a thousand of SOMEONE ELSE’S Twitter followers.  Yeah, it’s like that.  What I’m saying is that this is THE film for our times. 

If this isn’t the best goddamned movie ever made, it’s certainly the scariest.