mother! Review

Mother! was directed by Darren Aronofsky, which stars Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem and is a story surrounding a couples relationship as they are tested by the constant arrival of uninvited guests. Now, going into this movie I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I didn't watch any trailers for it and I stayed away from all reviews. I immediately knew this was going to be an intriguing film from the opening scene. It starts off in such a confusing way, and only gets weirder from there. This is going to be one of those movies I think a lot of people will talk about, whether you enjoyed the movie or not. To be honest, I was not the biggest fan of mother!. It was a movie that I just never really got invested in, and it was just not my style.

I didn't enjoy mother! but I do have to give it credit for what it did well.

1. Cinematography- Matthew Libatique and Darren Aronofsky worked wonderfully together to create a movie that just looked great. I was really appreciative of how the film was shot. It uses it's cinematography to really do a lot of visual story telling. I always appreciate when films do this. Visual storytelling, when done right, brings more to a story than just dialogue exposition. It forces me to pay closer attention to the things on screen. There was a scene in mother! where everything starts to go crazy, and it looks amazing. I also noticed that this film will very rarely cut a wide shot or have any type of establishing shot. It was all shot to witness the reactions of Jennifer Lawrence and to tell the story form her perspective. I was really impressed with the things these two men were able to pull off with their work on mother!. 

2. Sound Design- The sound design of this film was the first thing I really noticed. I noticed that it started playing a role in the movie and it helped tell the story. The sound was almost a character itself and that was very impressive to witness. I could tell that this was something that Aronofsky worked hard on and thought about. Sound design is something that a lot of directors will skip over or not pay that much attention to. Unfortunately, when a director does skip over a detail like sound design, it can really hurt a movie. Aronofsky does not do this with mother!, he worked hard to make sure his film was very technically sound. 

Now, let's take a look at the one thing I did not like about this movie. 

1. Story- I was not a fan of the story in this movie. It wasn't that I didn't understand it, I just didn't enjoy what was on screen. Toward the 3rd act I felt myself wanting to give it another chance. I wanted to engage in what I was watching, I just couldn't. A lot of this is due to the meaning of the movie. Mother! at times just got to be too much and way too graphic. I thought a lot of things that were depicted were unnecessary and just not enjoyable. I get that this movie was not meant to be a summer popcorn movie, but the statements in this movie were just not appealing to me. 

Overall, mother! was a movie that I just didn't enjoy at all. This was unfortunate, because I loved Aronofsky's film Black Swan. I thought that movie was a masterpiece. Mother! however, just missed the mark for me entirely. It was a good looking movie, with excellent sound design. But that was pretty much it for me. The story lost me very early on in the first act and never brought me back. I watched closely as to interpret this movie to the best of my ability. What I did get out of it was just not something I enjoyed on any level. However, do to it's technical achievements I am going to give mother! a C. 

If you'd like to know my thoughts on the story of mother! and read an analysis of the movie, be sure to subscribe to my blog as it will be posted within the next few days!