I have been and read three reviews about the film Mother! which I saw yesterday and didn’t like. I’m curious as to what it is about the film that was liked so much by the critics.
Mark Kermode in the Observer wrote:
. . . . I found Mother! an increasingly exasperating experience – a claustrophobic exercise in ghastly black comedy; relentless, ridiculous, and occasionally panic-inducing. Yet give it time to settle, and the labour pains of watching Mother! produce something that you could grow to love.
Apparently this film is an observation of the world as a whole. I did feel claustrophobic, I wanted to see outside, to escape the house, but I will not grow to love it.
Robbie Collin in the Telegraph wrote:
Aronofsky’s film is . . . . a fevered allegory of humans versus nature, a grotesque, Goya-channelling creation myth mash-up, a parable of artistic obsession, and a psychological horror set inside an introvert’s worst nightmare.
Well, that’s OK then. If you decide to interpret it non-literally then you can impose any scenario entirely on it. Here’s one for you: it’s an allegory of the life and times of Lady Diana. See, easy. You see what you want to see.
Chris Hunneysett in the Mirror writes:
Employing biblical allusions with tremendous finesse and huge ambition, the director unleashes apocalyptic fireballs of condemnation on his targets. These include the control organised religion exerts over women, the cult of celebrity, and the vanity of the male creative process.
So, not about earth but control.
So, I like artistic films. I like clever films. But I did not like this film. Also, Aronofsky made Noah, which was bollocks too!
I’m reminded that Hollywood loves films about Hollywood. Want to win an Oscar? Then write a film about Hollywood. I think one of the reasons critics love this film is that it gives them the chance to place upon it all the anguish, threat and allegory that they learnt about in school.