Mother! * * *

I’m beginning to think Darren Aronofsky is the new Ken Russell. So this latest effort from Darren with its Over The Top content doesn't surprise me at all.
What does surprise me is critics who thought Black Swan was brilliant are knocking this film. Like they've suddenly noticed what they should have noticed when they saw Black Swan several years ago - half the time Darren is talking puerile nonsense.

Whoopee! Visitors!

But I’ll say this for Mother!  - unlike the poker-faced Black Swan, this is funny!  Funny enough for it to redeem itself from its pretentiousness.

Veronica is a naive girl married to a writer who is nearly old enough to be her Dad. They have a beautiful house in the country. He writes whilst she renovates.  The house was subjected to a fire once so the rebuild is quite extensive.

Then the first visitor comes.  A strange old doctor with a hacking cough. At this stage we are intrigued, especially at the level of enthusiasm her husband has in inviting him in and encouraging him to stay.  Then the Doctor’s wife comes, then their adult kids come and they all have an incredibly violent brawl over the Doctors will. I don’t know if I should have been laughing but the whole situation struck me as hilarious. Complete strangers coming into your house to have a domestic argument.

After the fight they leave. But then they come back to the house and bring more visitors and more visitors and more visitors…It’s like those French absurdist films from the fifties and sixties.

Finally they all leave. She becomes pregnant which is all she ever wanted.  He finishes his poem which seems to be one page. But the world loves it. Then the fans come, and more fans and more fans and more fans.

They just want him. Any part of him, from his food to his clothes to any part of his house.  She can’t get them out of her house. Meanwhile we have floorboards that bleed, walls that rumble and noises that might or might not be in her head.

Then it becomes kind of Messianic and also starts moving into Greek Classicism. Which made me like it actually. I thought the symbolism was brutal, lacking any subtlety, and probably ill founded, but hey, at least he is trying to give us real drama and something to think about. (You’re a whack job Darren but your heart is in the right place).

As for its title, I”m not sure, but I get the impression it comes from the writer perpetually using women to gestate his poetry… or something profoundly symbolic like that.

And for the record I always did have a bit of a soft spot for Ken Russell.