Director: Darren
Aronofsky
Notable Cast: Jennifer
Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, Brian
Gleeson, Kristen Wiig, Stephen McHattie
The artistic and atmospheric slant of horror films has seen
a burst of activity in the last handful of years and it has garnered quite a
bit of attention from critics AND the more casual film goer. This has seen a
handful of films that normally would be pushed down to straight to home video
status or limited release get a full theatrical drop. Some of these even have
full backing support from studios. It’s this success, even on a small scale,
that allowed mother! to get a much
larger release than expected. It helps immensely when one considers the stacked
casting and the appeal of artistic director Darren Aronofsky, but mother! is the kind of film that was
definitely going to rub mainstream audiences the wrong way and it’s now well
publicized ‘F’ Cinemascore from viewers solidifies that notion. Yet, mother! is not nearly as terrible as
some critics and most audiences would have one believe. In fact, it’s an
ambitious, provocative, and fully realized piece of cinematic art that pushes
the boundaries. In a way, whether one agrees with the choices made in narrative
or style of the film, it should be respected as a film that opens up an entire
audience to an artistic version of horror film making that they may not have seen
before. For that, mother! deserves some serious credit.