Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfieffer & Ed Harris
Mother! Opens with a woman burning with flames all around her. She's being burnt alive and yet she is not dead.
And the husband putting a crystal on a mantel which transforms everything anew - the entire house and trees around the area.
The lead actress wakes up to find her husband not in bed. Her husband has a mental block and she encourages him on by staring him down while he writes. She plays the role of a dutiful, stifling wife who uses a lot of reverse psychology at home. For eg she re-builds this home herself, cooks everything by herself even when she was heavily pregnant later and is intent on rebuilding her home. This could be read as the boundaries she has against anyone which gets slowly pushed down and finally trampled upon.
A stranger appears at the door looking for a room for rent. The husband is unable to reject him especially after knowing his ardent love for him as a fan, even more so as a fan dying from some illness. We see, through the wife's eyes, the escalating horror of intrusion, starting from this stranger, to his wife, two sons, Family and friends and finally with Publisher, fans and SWAT team.
However all starts out tranquil although extremely tense in the way everything was framed - tightly cropped leaving me at the edge of my seat all the time. From no smoking in the house, to the strangers wife barging in and treating it like her house, asking intrusive questions such as "Why do you not want kids?" Which parallels what I get sometimes at CNY during family gatherings, to the lead actress stumbling onto her strangers having sex in their room. When she wanted to throw them out she faltered at the last min.
The last straw came when the couple breaks the crystal and the husband boards up the writing room in his fit of anger. The lead actress throws them out.
But the next day, the stranger's sons barged in, and began quarrelling as the elder son was furious that his younger brother gets possession of wealth. He stabs him and his brother dies. The blood stains flow down to this huge basement which the lead finds the beating heart in the wall turning slightly black. Previously when she was painting the house, the heart was a healthy reddish form.
The husband, supposedly a protector of the wife and head of the household, leaves the wife to clear up the bloody mess. He goes to the hospital with the strangers and their dying son. I keep thinking that crazy son will enter and stab her.
The husband returns and she blows up. She blames him for inviting people in without her consent and we can tell the writer loves the adulation of the strangers. They quarrel over him not wanting to touch her and make love to her, to which the husband promptly did to prove her wrong. The next day she announces that she's pregnant. After she had given him life, the husband could write again and he produced another story which moved her to tears. She dumps the medicine which is energy itself that sustains her heart and forms the crystal, into the sink. Maybe she knows her mission is almost complete.
The phone calls start coming in and during her preparations for a candlelight celebration at home, fans began crowding the doors, then streaming in, finally breaking down all doors. What begins as cordial fun with fan signing time, moves to club-like party and escalates to beheading by the publicist and SWAT team. There is a cult-like fanaticism, with alters filled with the husband's image, candles everywhere and signing of the forehead which bears much resemblance to Christian imagery and practices.
The lead actress is saved by her husband and they find sanctuary in the writing room. She gives birth to a son and the cult outside bears gifts of nourishment and water. She mothers her son and refuses to allow the writer to hold him, for fearing that he would be taken away. When she closed her eyes for a second, her son is gone and the husband has sacrificed him to the crowd. They beat her up and the husband tries to save her. They have eaten his flesh and the lead stabs them all. The heart in the wall has turned Black. She runs to the basement and the crowds want her blood. She spills open the oil tank and sets herself on fire. All is dead including the house. It was charred to the grounds and the trees surrounding it. She's badly burnt and the husband us unscathed. He asks for a final wish from her - her heart - and she obliges. The precious stone lays inside.
The writer puts this precious crystal on the mantel once again and the place is transformed. A new wife, his muse, is born.
A writer is never for himself or for a wife alone. He does not love her but just the love she shows him. It is sad. She can never build any house with him because he is a creator and does not belong to any one.
Upon reflection, my house (boundaries, things I hold dear, things I spend years building and pruning, things I love and give my heart to) is also constantly being invaded & trampled upon. Shit dished on me and sometimes I've no guts to stand out to them.
Mother! might be a muse which a creator has to constantly create and is the source of his or her inspiration. This artistic creator is totally self-centred and narcissistic and mother! is always giving and giving until nothing is left to give. Mother! tries to protect her son but even that is taken from her. It is sad but true and reminds me of what we're doing to Mother Earth as well.
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