Keep It Reel: 'Mother!'

By Marc Woodfork

"Mother!" stars Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem in director Darren Aronofsky's latest film.   This is by far his strangest and darkest work to date.  It's a love story wrapped within a psychological thriller.  Jennifer and Javier play a married couple who seemingly have the perfect relationship, but things begin to go awry after an unknown couple shows up at their door looking for help.

That's where the film becomes strange.  'Mother!' turns into a murder mystery, supernatural mess.  Not in a good way.  The story begins to weave between what's real and what's inside Jennifer Lawrence's head.  We're not sure if she is experiencing a mental breakdown or if the events unfolding are actually happening.  The film becomes confusing and your focus becomes figuring out what's going on rather than the actors' performances.

I'm not sure what Aranofsky is trying to say with this film.  A few days after watching it, I'm still completely lost as to what the movie was about.  "Mother!" will find a difficult place at the box office to fit in.  I'm not sure who the target audience is. Intermingled in the mess of a story are some fine performances by a stellar cast, including Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer.  It's just unfortunate that they get lost in the poor story.