Mother!

Year of Release:  2017
Director:  Darren Aronofsky
Screenplay:  Darren Aronofsky
Starring:  Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer
Running Time:  121 minutes
Genre:  Horror, drama,

A young woman (Lawrence), referred to as "Mother" in the credits, although nine of the characters are named in the film, is married to a successful poet (Bardem), who is suffering from writer's block.  They live together in a rambling country house which she is renovating after a severe fire.  One night a strange couple (Harris and Pfeiffer) arrive and insinuate themselves into the lives of the homeowners.  It then gets progressively darker and weirder as more and more people invade the couple's home.

This film from writer/director Darren Aronofsky is frankly bizarre.  It's full of striking, memorable images and sequences, and Jennifer Lawrence gives a fantastic, tortured performance.  Some of it though is frankly tedious, and almost the whole thing makes very little sense.  It's probably best to see the film as an allegory, not to be taken literally, and there is likely to be a lot of discussion about what it actually means.  My take on it is that Jennifer Lawrence just wants to be left in piece with her family, but it's impossible to escape from the demands and intrusion of the world outside.  It's worth watching for it's sheer ambition.  You'll likely not see much like this, certainly not from a mainstream Hollywood release.  Personally I didn't enjoy the film, but I'm glad that I saw it, and I*'m still trying to decode what the hell it's all about.

Jennifer Lawrence in Mother!