It is the Poet’s treasure, his prized possession, a source of renewal and hope. Moreover, it was from these very same ashes that Mother rebuilt the Poet’s home. But amid those ashes a massive and gorgeous diamond was found. A mysterious fire had reduced the Poet’s previous domicile to ashes, consuming absolutely everything. No one goes in there, the Poet’s sanctuary, without the Poet’s being present. Are there problems in the bedroom? Oooh, can I look in here, the Poet’s study? she asks without waiting for an answer. Doctor is an intrusive and entitled sort who quizzes Mother as to why she doesn’t have kids. (Who are these terrible people? Why would her husband allow these Pushy McPushfaces into their Paradise?) Soon we have the Bickersons roaming about as if they owned the joint, to Mother’s great distress and confusion. The very next day, who should arrive but Mrs. So Walt Witless invites this perfect stranger to stay the night, without consulting Mother (There’s a lot of that.) He finds the hacking mess-the Doctor smokes because, presumably, he went to medical school in 1955-to be fascinating and filled with enough colorful tales to set the Poet’s creative juices flowing. Well, the Poet takes to the doctor like Bela Lugosi to Ed Wood. Actually, he’s lying, as he is a Misery-inducing fanboy who travels with the Poet’s photo in his grip. Here he’s a doctor who says he’d been told the house was a B&B. Nothing good can come from Ed Harris knocking at your door. or mourning sickness.Īs for the Poet, well, he has writer’s block, and you know what that means. Only something is a little weird this morning, as if the house isn’t quite itself, as if it were a living, breathing thing that was suffering a bit of dyspepsia. She is the Mother of the Phoenix she shares with her husband, the Poet (Javier Bardem). See, she has single-handedly rebuilt this manor from mere ashes. Mother, wearing a diaphanous nightie (this is a horror flick of sorts, and nothing good comes of young women in their unmentionables in horror flicks), is walking the house, surveying her handiwork. Room after room, oak beam after oak beam, are notch tongued and grooved to perfection. Only Mother is weeping over a desecration far more egregious than empty Pepsi bottles and used Whopper wrappers as makeshift mulch.Īs our story begins, the seared remains of our Oscar™ winner and her immediate environment are magically reborn into a magnificent mansion out in the middle of nowhere. For a moment the image put me in mind of that old commercial featuring a Native American weeping because some numbskull has tossed litter from his car window, desecrating the land. Mother! opens on Jennifer Lawrence in flames, her hair a ragged mess, her face the color of pewter, a tear rolling down her charred cheek. But anyone familiar with my approach to film criticism knows I prefer to put the best construction on things, to give artists the benefit of the doubt, and to seek the “teachable moment.” You know, that temptation to indulge in pious eisegesis when confronted with a narrative bereft of so much as a hint of a gracious God or even good taste. And by “both filmgoers” I mean both of them: mother! fared poorly at the box office this past weekend, bringing in a mere $7.5 million, which isn’t enough to keep the average Hollywood A-lister in Zoloft. Writer-director Darren Aronofsky’s lastest film has provoked extreme reactions from both filmgoers and critics.
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