A Mother No One Should Love

I hate this movie.

You’re probably thinking Jimmy calm down why so angry, it’s only a movie? But I will tell you why. This movie is the worst. After watching it I wanted to take a cold shower so badly and scrub my brain to get this movie out of it. Do I have my reasons? I surely do. But hey I guess I better back my statements up with some fact before I start to go off.

Mother is the new movie by Darren Aronofsky. You know the dude who made Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan and my personal fav of his The Wrestler. Well hasn’t he and the studio pulled a fast one over us. Firstly, I must warn you if you have seen the previews and are expecting a clever psychological thriller/horror movie, boy are you going to be disappointed. Clever Paramount and their marketing. This is not that, but a twisted movie about something else. The plot is very simple, a husband (Javier Bardem) and wife (Jennifer Lawrence) are living in a remote home. He a famous poet. She his wife, fixing up her husband’s family home which was destroyed years ago by fire. (BTW I haven’t forgot their names, they don’t have any. Seriously no one in this movie has a character name).  So one day a fan (Ed Harris) and his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) come by the home to pay their respect to the poet. The husband offers them a place to stay and in return we start to witness the downfall of this movie. What comes next is this. Jennifer Lawrence crying, yelling for everyone to get out of her house, crying, yelling and then falling pregnant (all with a really bad wig). Throw in some blood, a mysterious stone, machine guns, cannibalism, symbolism layed on hard and thick and even (and I can’t believe I am about to say this) Kristen Wiig. Yep the Wiigster turned up. What the heck were you thinking? That was like a kick in the guts seeing her in this.

Where do I start with how bad this movie is? Firstly, I am going to be positive here as I do respect all movie directors and their visions. It was actually, I wouldn’t say interesting, but it held my attention for the first half. Michelle Pfeiffer (please fire your agent after this) is the best thing about it. She actually injects some much needed energy. But after hearing she came out of semi-retirement for this it was a huge let down. (And why, has she run out of Catwoman money already?). But the annoying thing is she leaves half way through and I felt myself cheer on the inside knowing that at least she wouldn’t be exposed like the audience to the rest of this crap. And that’s about it for the positives. Javier Bardem (fire your agent) is such a talented actor. But dude does nothing in this but not give a shit about his wife, allows people to trash his home and yells. And I can’t believe I am about to write this, but here goes. Jennifer Lawrence contributed to one of the worst part about this movie. I know I’m sorry I am a big fan, but no, no, no. But I actually don’t think it was the bad casting. The character was just the worst. After watching her empower women in most of her past movies, she took women back decades in this role. I don’t blame you Jen. A chance to do something different must have been appealing, but no, no, no. Not this. Fire your agent right now.

Now to my biggest problem. As you all know if you have seen Darren Aronofsky’s previous work, he likes to shock his audience. You know what I am talking about Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan etc. There is always a scene which is disturbing. This one though in Mother takes the cake. I am not telling you what, because it makes me sick thinking I actually viewed it. But my question is this? Why in movies like Saw, do they call it torture porn in movies, but a movie like this people think is art? Did he think he was being clever with all the symbolism in this movie? And it wasn’t even that hard to figure it out what they all stood for.  Honestly, this is when a studio should have stepped in and did something about this. It was just not right. I mean I have seen my fair share of scenes in movies which have impacted me, but this was just wrong on so many levels. It was enough for me to nearly walk out (and seriously I wish I did about half way through) this movie just goes off the rails in the second half. I could not hate this movie enough. If you are reading this my fans (all two of you) please do not see this movie. You will thank me for it, because if you feel like throwing away your hard earn dollars throw some my way. I will give you my Paypal account details, because this was just awful. Half a star (only for Michelle).