Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris
Storyline
A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence -
Mother
Javier Bardem -
Him
Ed Harris -
Man
Michelle Pfeiffer -
Woman
Brian Gleeson -
Younger Brother
Domhnall Gleeson -
Oldest Son
Jovan Adepo -
Cupbearer
Amanda Chiu -
Damsel
Patricia Summersett -
Consoler
Eric Davis -
Bumbler
Raphael Grosz-Harvey -
Philanderer
Emily Hampshire -
Fool
Abraham Aronofsky -
Wanderer
Luis Oliva -
Idler
Stephanie Ng Wan -
Whisperer
Opening Weekend: AUD 697,113
(Australia)
(17 September 2017)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
Received an "F" CinemaScore, the worst possible score, which is very rare: Only 19 features have ever received an "F" CinemaScore. [Sept. 2017]} See more »
Quotes:
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User Review
Author:
Rating: 2/10
I'll be honest – I f**king hated 'Mother!', and by that I mean I
absolutely loathed it. If you thought 'Black Swan' was pretentious,
well you haven't yet seen writer-director Darren Aronofsky's latest
self-aggrandizing piece of 'artistic filmmaking'.
The titular character is never named, and as played by Jennifer
Lawrence, is the adoring wife of an also unnamed middle-aged poet –
referred to as 'Him' (Javier Bardem) – stuck in writer's block. They
live in a gorgeous octagonal Victorian mansion, which she is
painstakingly renovating. We find out later that the house was burned
down in a fire which consumed her husband's first wife, and that he had
pulled from the ashes a burnished crystal which he now displays proudly
in his study.
Then out of the blue, a stranger (Ed Harris) turns up at their
doorstep. He says he's an orthopaedic surgeon who's looking for a place
to stay, and that he had mistaken their house for a bed-and- breakfast.
To her horror, 'Him' invites the 'man' to stay; and by the next day,
his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) arrives, followed by their two quarrelling
sons (Domhnall and Brian Gleeson). Before the day is over, one son will
bludgeon and accidentally kill the other, resulting in a pool of blood
on the wooden floorboards that she will scrub clean save for a patch
shaped in a vagina.
It doesn't take a genius to see the parallel with the Cain and Abel
story in the Bible, or the 10 plagues that make a brief appearance one
by one. Those familiar with Aronofosky will know that he has been
fascinated with Christianity – from his first feature 'Pi' to 'Noah' to
'The Fountain', Aronofsky has consistently drawn allegories and imagery
from Biblical stories. 'Mother!' is no different, but there is no
coherence, no logic and no purpose in his references here.
The anything-goes, anyhow-told narrative has unwelcome strangers
turning up at her house to mourn the death of the 'man's' son, an
unleashing of pent-up passion between her and 'Him', her unexpected
pregnancy afterwards that lets her morph into the Virgin Mary, her
husband's sudden inspiration and overnight success, the arrival of cult
followers that want to use her newborn son as blood sacrifice, and last
but not least plenty of sectarian wars and conflict that culminate in a
full cycle of destruction and reincarnation. Only those enamoured with
'bullshit' will think that revealing any of these unexpected twists and
turns amounts to 'spoilers'; but really, it's a lot of shock-and-awe
wrapped around a bastardisation of notable Biblical tales for
absolutely nothing.
Indeed, even more absurd than the movie itself is how some have tried
so strenuously to justify its nonsense. One reading has it as an
allegory for the abuse of Mother Earth, a warning for climate change;
another explains how it describes the process by which art is created
and how the artist eventually becomes a slave to that art; another
talks about how some men have treated their women in marriage, reducing
them to supporting roles and robbing them of agency and respect.
Neither of these interpretations disguises the fact that the movie is a
haphazard mess of ideas that never amounts to anything substantial or
compelling.
Why then should we put up with its misogyny? Why then should we put up
with the overwrought delirium that just gets more and more sickening?
Or more fundamentally, why should we even care about what's happening
on screen? Not even Lawrence, or Bardem, or Harris, or Pfeiffer can add
depth to their characters, which are so thinly written that we wonder
why the actors even bothered. And therein lies the stark truth about
the madness we are supposed to discern as an expression of profound
ideas – there is simply nothing behind it, no meaning, no wit and
certainly no redemption.
'Mother!' is the sad product of an artist's self-indulgence taken to
its own grotesque extremes. It is no art, it is no genius, and it is
definitely no masterpiece, despite critics caught up in the same
pretension will try to convince you. If you're curious about why we
hated it so much, then go see it by all means; otherwise, stay away
from this motherf**king disaster.
Plot
A mother desperately searches for the killer that framed her son for their horrific murder.
Release Year: 2009
Rating: 7.9/10 (9,782 voted)
Critic's Score: 79/100
Director:
Joon-ho Bong
Stars: Hye-ja Kim, Bin Won, Ku Jin
Storyline A mother lives quietly with her twenty-eight-year-old son, Do-joon, providing herbs and acupuncture to neighbors. One day, a girl is brutally murdered, and Do-joon is charged with the killing. Now, it's his mother's call whether to prove him innocent or to leave him imprisoned.
Writers: Joon-ho Bong, Eun-kyo Park
Cast: Hye-ja Kim
-
Mother
Bin Won
-
Yoon Do-joon
Ku Jin
-
Jin-tae
(as Goo Jin)
Je-mun Yun
-
Je-moon
(as Jae-moon Yoon)
Mi-sun Jun
-
Mi-sun
Sae-Byeok Song
-
Sepaktakraw Detective
(as Sae-beauk Song)
Byoung-Soon Kim
-
Group Leader
Woo-hee Chun
-
Mi-na
Gin-goo Kim
-
Ah-jeong's Grandma
Moo-yeong Yeo
-
Lawyer Kong Seok-ho
(as Ou-hyung Yum)
Young-Suck Lee
-
Elder at Junk Shop
Hee-ra Mun
-
Moon Ah-jeong
(as Hee-ra Moon)
Mi-do Lee
-
Hyung-teo
Young-ki Jung
-
Kkang-ma
Gyu-pil Go
-
Ddung-ddung
(as Kyu-phill Ko)
Trivia:
South Korea's official submission to 82nd Academy Award's Foreign Language in 2010.
User Review
No idea this film would end up the way it did (and I'm not telling)
Rating: 10/10
It's too bad that because this film is ostensibly about an old lady it
must be considered a "smaller" film in Bong's oeuvre. It's not. It is
every bit as brilliant, and as large, as Memories of Murder, in my
opinion.
In many ways this is the natural, and equal, follow-up to Memories of
Murder. It's every bit the caper film that one was, and, although
slightly more somber in tone, the film keeps unraveling in directions
you don't expect making it much more a plot driven movie than a
character study. Kim Hye-ja is, however, magnificent as the titular
(gawd I hate that word but I'm using it anyway) mother. There is a
scene in this film where she tells the family of the victim her son
didn't do it and her eyes are so electrically charged it made me jump
back from the screen. Mother fires on all cylinders. The direction,
cinematography, script, and acting are all grade A. It's one of those
films where each of the secondary characters steals the show for a
brief period. (How 'bout that cop who kicks the apple from Won Bin's
mouth?) Bong does a remarkable job of populating the world of this film
with real people and manages to give them depth and development in a
very short period of time. I confess to having a little trouble
tracking the other female characters in the film, but no matter. There
is a scene (without spoiling anything here) where Kim Hye-ja asks the
other 'retarded' kid if he has a mother and it's one of the most
complex and heart-rending scenes in cinematic history. Hyperbole
notwithstanding, just freakin' WOW! on that one when you ponder just
why she is crying.
I wasn't sure where Bong was going to end up going as a film maker.
Barking Dogs Never Bite was a reasonable debut. Memories of Murder, a
masterpiece. But was it a lucky shot? I'm glad I don't have to consider
the dismal Antarctic Journal a Bong film if I don't want to. The Host
was lots-o-fun, but that's the one that worried me. Maybe he was going
to start making blockbuster type films. But now, after recently seeing
his contribution to Tokyo!, and now Mother, I have every reason to
believe he is going to kick my butt with interesting film for a long
time.
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