I promise I’m not making any of these up — here are 31 things that actually happen during “Mother!”
If you’ve seen any promotional material for Jennifer Lawrence’s latest, Mother! (HG has made the bold decision not to lowercase the M, but we will keep the exclamation point !) you might be thinking to yourself, “What the heck is this movie?” The poster for Darren Aronofsky’s latest film shows Lawrence holding her beating heart, which she appears to have just cut out of her chest. The trailers for the film make it seem like it might be a psychological and/or murder thriller, or maybe a story about a haunted house…?
Having seen Mother! I can tell you that it’s actually about none of the above. Honestly, I have no idea what it’s about, and I swear I sat through all two hours of the film. Just about everyone who’s come out of the theater has had the same WTF feeling and expression, and that’s just the easiest way to describe it. What did I just watch, and even more importantly, what the fuck just happened?
Since I do not have all day, I do not have time to explain to you what I think Mother! is about — but it’s got something to do with God, and mothers, and why it’s a bad idea to sit on kitchen countertops. Something like that. Also, it’s really an allegory for the environment. Sure! Instead, let me just tell you about a few of the batshit insane things that happen in the movie, and I’d say spoiler warning, but honestly, even telling you these things you’re going to be like, “What?” I, myself, read a detailed synopsis of the movie before I went in to see it, and I came out of it like, “…what?”
1. Our titular mother, Jennifer Lawrence, both begins, and ends, the movie on fire
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2. Thinking back, I’m honestly not sure if it’s the same mother on fire both times but…you know, that’s not the point.
3. Mother keeps drinking this weird, yellow liquid that looks like sunshine and every time she does the sharpest, shrillest sound comes out of the movie like nails on a chalkboard.
4. Him (you know, mother’s husband, played by Javier Bardem) invites a *Stranger* into the house to spend the night after he gets lost. The only reason this strange man is lost is because he thought him and mother’s house was a bed and breakfast? Like yeah, sure, Stranger.
5. Mother is repainting a room, but doing a really shitty job at it and just like, mixes plaster with herbs and just like…splatters it onto the wall and shares at it? And no offense, mother, but they’re both really bad colors for a room.
6. The Strange Man’s wife arrives, the Strange Lady, and she immediately makes boozy lemonade.
7. Mother hates the Strange Lady’s lime green lacy underwear, so she throws it behind the washing machine, and this is the only time I laughed during the movie.
8. Someone is beaten to death with a doorknob.
9. The funeral party that is suddenly taking place at the house (you know, over the doorknob incident) feel bad about intruding and start painting the interior of the house. Wow, I wish you guys would come to my place and paint for me.
10. There is a blood stain on the wood floor that is maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe supposed to resemble a vagina, but seriously, don’t ask me to explain that any further.
11. At one point, mother flushes a still-beating heart down the toilet.
12. After having sex once (I can only assume they’ve only had sex once), mother gets pregnant.
13. Even odder, mother immediately knows she’s pregnant. Kinda like how you just KNOW when you’re period has arrived.
14. Him writes the best poem (Short story? Novella? Tweet? Never fully explained) ever, and it sends literally e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g into a spiral, and it’s not a good spiral. It’s a spiral of destruction.
15. Because mother and Him never properly installed locks on any of their doors, people just start showing up at their house, unannounced and uninvited.
16. These new visitors to the house build an entire shrine for Him, and that’s not weird or anything.
17. Mother is a little too over protective of her sink countertop, and keeps yelling at everyone because they are sitting on it. It eventually breaks, and this sends mother into a spiraling rage.
18. There’s a sudden and sharp turn in the movie, where it shifts to — and seriously, the only way I can describe it is this — Showpiercer. You know that movie with Chris Evans on the snow apocalypse train? That’s what it becomes for like the last for 45 minutes. It’s just…chaos and too many people yelling at other people.
19. Kristen Wiig takes a bunch of people hostage, and shoots them.
20. The movie turns into a……………war movie?
21. Okay let me try and explain this: Roughly 40 years of history takes place in the span of maybe 10 mins as mother (also, mother is pregnant during all of this, BTW) and him try to make it to higher grounds in their house, which is being torn apart by war. An actual war. There are bunkers and barricades set up and the SWAT team shows up at one point.
22. If you’re still here with me, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
23. Mother gives birth, unaided by a doctor and drugs, maybe the most unrealistic thing in the entire movie.
24. Him barricades himself and mother in his study, where they only have to eat fruit, and this may or may not be a Garden of Eden reference?
25. Mother refuses to let Him hold the baby, so she stays awake for what I think was like, four days maybe.
26. Unfortunately, she eventually falls asleep and Him straight up kidnaps the baby.
27. Mother and Him’s baby is given to the crowds in their house, and the baby crowdsurfs, and it ends so tragically I honestly do not even want to write about it here.
28. …and then the people in the house eat the baby, and it is just straight up cannibalistic.
29. Mother who has HAD ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT makes her way to the basement and sets the house (and herself) on fire.
30. The beating heart thing throughout the movie turns out to BE a heart, and (I think) it’s mother’s heart, and it’s the glass crystal from the beginning of the movie that Him uses to “breathe life” back into everything, and it’s also what the man and woman smash, and honestly does any of this even make the least bit sense.
31. The movie restarts the same way it opened, with him “breathing life” back into everything. In short, the movie is basically Groundhogs Day.
And now you can say you’ve seen Mother!.
