BEFORE: Jennifer Lawrence carries over again from "Red Sparrow", and so far this month I've gone from eliminating my ties to the upcoming "Avengers" movie (Josh Brolin, Robert Downey Jr. and Michelle Pfeiffer tonight) to eliminating my ties to the upcoming "X-Men" movie (Jennifer Lawrence, with 3 Michael Fassbender films coming up next week). And as a bonus, today I also start eliminating links to the next "Star Wars" film, with 5 films starring Domhnall Gleeson. I'd better act fast on finding some new ones, or I'll be up a creek in December - also, I should probably take a close look at the casts of "New Mutants" and "Spider-Man: Far From Home".
THE PLOT: A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
AFTER: WARNING - Potential Spoilers ahead, there's just no other way to discuss this movie...
Having two bosses who also watch a ton of movies is usually a great thing for me, with both of them being Academy members, it means I have access to a whole bunch of screeners, so each year I can see some films that I missed in the theater but haven't surfaced on premium cable yet. Plus I can talk about recent movies with them, because chances are that one or both of them went to see that film for free at an Academy screening, especially during the busy months of November-January. But sometimes it also means that one or both of them saw one of those buzz-worthy movies and wrote a blog or a Facebook post about it, and they forgot to issue a Spoiler Alert - so often I learn about the big twist in a movie before I'm supposed to.
In the case of "Mother", I heard one boss's detailed theory about what the film really means in the end, and I suspect that this has become the generally accepted theory among critics and film buffs. I'll check this out on Wiki and IMDB when I finish writing my own review. Her theory was that the mother in this film is a stand-in for Mother Earth, and the horrible treatment she receives from her husband and a multitude of strangers is symbolic of how humans have been treating their planet in a similarly horrible manner. True or not, I went into this film with that theory already in mind, so with every new development in the plot, I thought back to this metaphor, and reasoned out how it did or didn't support this theory.
I'm glad that I did, because with each horrible thing depicted in the film, and there are a lot of them, I just reminded myself that everything was just a metaphor for pollution or strip-mining, or fracking, or the destruction of animal species, and that these horrible things were not meant to be taken literally. If I didn't have this metaphor loaded and working, I probably would have been up on my feet, halfway through the film, tearing my hair out in frustration, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and the "why" of it all. Because taken literally, the film doesn't make much sense, in fact it's mostly dreamlike in its presentation of a sequence of events that just keep spiraling out of control, and getting worse and worse.
I was reminded of "Requiem For a Dream", a film by the same director, in which three young likable people (and one older one) have plans for how they're going to succeed at life, but despite their best efforts they're brought down by their own addictions and shortcomings, so the audience is left to watch a series of events equivalent to four train wrecks, and there's nothing we can do to stop it all. (The temptation is there to yell at the characters to do something positive and change the courses that they're on, but believe me, it doesn't help...) And by the end their lives have become a nightmarish swirl of drug withdrawal, electro-shock therapy, working live sex shows and doing manual labor in prison.
"Mother" sort of follows the same pattern, starting out with an author (only known as "Him" in the credits) and his wife in a large 3-story house in the middle of a beautiful country scene, and though he's suffering from a bout of writer's block, they're happy, or at least busy, with the prospect of painting and decorating the house, while hopeful about the future and the prospect of having a baby. One day there's a knock on the door and it's a man (known only as "Man" in the credits) who somehow mistakenly thought their house was a country inn or a bed & breakfast, and for some reason, the husband lets him stay the night. He does not ask his wife's permission, and this becomes the first of many, many sleights against her. The "Man" smokes in the house, lets himself into rooms where he is not invited to be, drinks too much, etc.
Soon after, the man's wife ("Woman") shows up, and she's worse than he is, she's catty and judgmental and also has no personal boundaries, drinks heavily and breaks stuff, and again, the husband doesn't seem to have much problem with the situation. Days later their two adult sons show up (even though nobody in this film uses a cell phone, so how did they know where their parents were?) and they're arguing over their inheritance. They fight, it doesn't end well, and then there are repercussions from this, as things start to get worse and worse. "Him" writes something profound in response, and it becomes an instant worldwide sensation, but this becomes just as problematic as everything else - fans show up for an impromptu book signing in the couple's living room, the fans help themselves to dinner, and then they start grabbing personal items as souvenirs.
Incongruities and impossibilites keep compiling - how did the author's publisher find out about his new poem so quickly? How did the author's fame rise so instantly? Where are all these people coming from? And are the events we're witnessing playing out over a period of weeks, days, or hours? Time becomes meaningless as the events depicted make less and less sense, society devolves into chaos and a literary cult turns into a holy war of ideals that gets fought between the kitchen and the dining room. And who added on the gulag to the pantry?
Through it all, the "Mother" has some kind of affinity with the house - she touches the walls and she feels them pulse like a living thing. And there's a sort of sore or wound on the floor that keeps bleeding or oozing, getting worse and worse (another plot element that seemed to carry over from "Requiem for a Dream", this director really likes infected wounds or something). So I can this could easily be mistaken for a horror film, because an alternate interpretation would be that this house is alive, and either sick or evil in some way. Which is strange for me, because I'm only halfway through the first month of 2019, and I've now watched two films with buildings that seemed to be alive - the other one was "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium", and otherwise it couldn't be more different from "Mother!".
So I think the metaphor where the "Mother" here is "Mother Earth", because the suddenly crowded house could clearly represent over-population, the way that the strangers helped themselves to the food and went to the bathroom wherever they wanted clearly could represent how humans eat everything they want and don't have any valid solution for what to do with their own trash and bodily waste. And naturally all their actions lead to chaos and the ultimate destruction of the house/planet. But even though this is the metaphor that seems the most apt, it doesn't really fit 100% right, like who is "Him" then? And are "Man" and "Woman" supposed to be Adam & Eve, and then who or what is the baby? So now I'm wondering if other answers are possible.
(EDIT: I just checked with my boss, and supposedly "Him" is supposed to represent God, and the "Man" and "Woman" are indeed allegories for Adam & Eve. This explains the people in the house who are fans of "Him", that's a whole statement on religion, I guess. The house is the Earth, as I suspected, and "Mother" is a stand-in for Mother Nature, not Mother Earth. And nature tries its best to get rid of all the people in the house - we're seeing this now with all the hurricanes and wildfires and global warming. This still doesn't explain everything, like what's the yellow powder that she drinks? And why would God create an imperfect world that so easily collapses into ruin? But it seems to be the best theory, as it came from the director during a Q&A at an Academy screening.)
Perhaps this is a commentary on the price of sudden fame in the viral internet age. Or maybe it's about how human society finds a way to screw everything up by forming religions and worshipping cult icons who are flawed, therefore any actions done in their name are also flawed. You can just sort of feel that everything is part of a metaphor for something, just because of how impossible or oblique everything ends up being, but to what degree is this open to individual interpretation?
Also, then, what's up with the ending, also the very beginning? I'm not seeing exactly how it fits in with the whole metaphor. It just reminded me of the book "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein, which was also full of metaphor, but it made a whole lot more sense. Who knows, maybe the whole thing is just a giant stress dream about having uninvited guests in your house, or maybe it's home repair, because if there's something physically wrong with your house, like with the heating or the plumbing, it's only going to get worse and worse until you call a repairman. God knows I've watched quite a few stress-dream movies already this year, like "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and "Suburbicon". I suppose "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" and "Annihilation" also fit that category.
Also starring Javier Bardem (last seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), Ed Harris (last seen in "Winter Passing"), Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Ant-Man and the Wasp"), Domhnall Gleeson (last seen in "American Made"), Brian Gleeson (last seen in "Assassin's Creed"), Kristen Wiig (last seen in "Whip It"), Jovan Adepo (last seen in "Fences"), Stephen McHattie (last seen in "The Art of the Steal"), Amanda Warren (last seen in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."), Laurence Leboeuf, Emily Hampshire, Amanda Chiu, Shaun O'Hagan (last seen in "The Post").
RATING: 4 out of 10 angry protestors
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