Quick Reviews: mother! (2017)

After everyone crapped all over this one and its Star was happy to see the negative Reviews, you must be wondering if it is truly that bad.  If you are like most of America and didn't see this in Theaters, let me elaborate for you...

J. Law here is mother, a young woman married to a Poet (Javier Bardem).  He has writer's block, while she fixes up the House.

Strangers start showing up and Javier continues to do what he wants without consulting her.

It all comes to a head when a violent assault takes place, leading to a wake- also not ran by her first.

The Film does a time jump and now we see that he has written something new.  That's great...until dozens of people start showing up...again.

The House fills up with chaos, mayhem and violence absurdly-fast.  In the midst of all this mother gives birth.

How does she end up like this?  Do you really want to wait 2 hours to find out?

If so, watch the Film (if you must).

It's all an allegory.  Do you get it?  Did you untangle the extremely-subtle hints?  The fact that Bardem is called 'Him' and everyone else's name is in lower case?  The fact that the couple- Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer- have two kids and one attacks the other ring a bell?  The fact that everyone seems to be practically-worshipping Bardem?  So yeah, it's about as subtle as Steam Whistle!  Not to get too much into Religion, but I think that maybe it was a bad idea to let Darren Aronofsky learn about the Bible.  Wait- hear me out!  Because of that happening, we get his bloated Noah Film that was both too literal- using the Watchers- for some religious people, but also too preachy for non-religious people.  In this case, he makes a long, drawn-out allegory that only serves to annoy.  Poor J. Law is just there to be annoyed, scared, confused or sad.  They say that Acting is just reacting- it's certainly true in this case.  Bardem's Him is just callous and oblivious.  The people that fill up the House are just jerks and some even turn into religious zealots.  The Third Act basically plays out like some of the jokes from that Futurama Episode where time starts skipping.  In summary, I totally 'get' the Film- I just don't like it.  It's both too obtuse as a narrative and too obvious as an allegory.  It's just mind-numbing and it's easy to see why people reacted the way they did.  Love it if you want.  Hate it if you want.  As a Film, at least, it provoked a response.  Pure apathy is a response, right?

It's a Film that you either love or hate.  To be honest, I'm more annoyed than hateful, but we'll see how I feel over time.