A two-hour nightmare, nearly every frame of Mother! is designed to be deeply unpleasant. Since that’s the goal, and since it accomplishes that goal so well, Mother! kind of has to get an A+, four stars, two thumbs up, right? I’m not sure I can tell you what the fuck Mother! is, but I am pretty sure it’s exactly what writer/director Darren Aronofsky meant to make. Good for him! Whether that’s good for anyone else is TBD.
Also TBD: Why Mother! has that jaunty little exclamation point, and how you’ll feel stumbling out of the theater. Mother! is the kind of movie that’ll have some declaring it a work of genius and others decrying it as a piece of garbage. (I’m guessing zero people will land in the middle; nobody’s leaving Mother! with a shrug.) And good luck trying to classify it: Is it an art house horror movie? A thriller? A twisted romance? Sure, Mother! could be a trippy take on a disintegrating marriage, or it could serve as a biblical allegory for the creative process. Is it a far-reaching indictment of America’s lifestyle consumerism, or just a movie about how far Aronofsky has his head up his ass? Is it brilliant? Is it terrible? Is it both? It’s Mother!