Mother!

Plot

In the burned-out remains of a large house, Him, an acclaimed poet struggling with writer's block, places a crystal object on a pedestal in his study, and the building morphs into a beautiful home in an edenic landscape. Mother, the poet's wife and muse, awakens in her bed and wonders aloud where Him is. While renovating the house, she occasionally visualizes a beating heart within its walls.

One day, a stranger called Man turns up at the house, claiming to be an orthopedic surgeon and asking for a room. That night, Man suffers from dry heaves and Mother observes a wound on his side. Man's wife, Woman, arrives the next day. Mother is increasingly frustrated by her guests, but Him begs her to let them stay, revealing that Man is actually a fan whose dying wish was to meet Him. However, when Man and Woman accidentally shatter the crystal object, Him becomes angry and boards up his study. Man and Woman's two sons arrive unexpectedly and fight over Man's will. Oldest Son wounds his brother, and then flees after having his head smashed against glass by Him, leaving a bloody gash in Younger Brother's head.

Him, Man, and Woman take the injured son to the hospital. Mother cleans up and notices strange damage to the house, including a fly, a frog, and blood that will not stop dripping. She follows the blood to a tank of heating oil hidden behind the basement walls. Him informs Mother that Younger Brother has died.

Mother and Him are roused that night when dozens of people arrive unannounced at the house to mourn the dead son. The visitors behave in rude and presumptuous ways that irritate Mother, and she snaps and orders everyone to leave when they break a sink, partially flooding the house. She berates Him for allowing so many people inside and ignoring her needs, but their argument leads to passionate love-making. The next morning, Mother announces she is pregnant, which elates Him and inspires him to start writing again.

Some time later, Mother prepares for the child's arrival and reads Him's beautiful new poem. Upon publication, it is acclaimed and sells well. In celebration, Mother prepares a big dinner, but more fans interrupt. Mother tries to lock the doors, but droves of fans pour inside and begin to wreak havoc, damaging the house. Him is oblivious, but a disoriented Mother watches helplessly as military forces turn up to battle members of the cult that has sprung up around Him; his publicist organizes mass executions. Mother goes into labor and Him reopens his study so she can give birth inside.

Themes

In an interview, Lawrence stated that the film is an allegory and "depicts the rape and torment of Mother Earth ... I represent Mother Earth; Javier, whose character is a poet, represents a form of God, a creator; Michelle Pfeiffer is an Eve to Ed Harris's Adam, there's Cain and Abel and the setting sometimes resembles the Garden of Eden."

Aronofsky said the exclamation mark in the title "reflects the spirit of the film", which ends with "a big exclamation point". He discussed the film's unusual choice of not capitalizing the letter 'm' in the title during a Reddit interview, saying: "To find out why there's a lowercase 'm', read the credits and look for the letter that is capitalised. Ask yourself what's another name for this character?" (In the credits, the characters' names are all shown in lowercase, except for Him.)

Production

Writing

After 2014's Noah, Darren Aronofsky began working on a children's film. During that process, he came up with a new idea. He ended up writing the screenplay for mother! in five days, much faster than his usual pace. The film uses a dream-logic narrative, of which Aronofsky has noted: "if you try to unscrew it, it kind of falls apart ... it's a psychological freak-out. You shouldn't over-explain it."

Casting

Jennifer Lawrence was reportedly in talks to join the film by October 2015, and, by January 2016, Javier Bardem was also in talks to star. In March, it was announced Kristen Wiig had been cast in the film, and, by April, Domhnall Gleeson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ed Harris and Brian Gleeson were added to the cast. Lawrence was paid $15 million, Harris $3 million, and Pfeiffer $5 million.

Filming

On a production budget of $30 million, principal photography began in Montreal, Québec, under the shooting title Day 6 from June to August 2016. The cast first rehearsed for three months in a warehouse, during which time Aronofsky was able to "get a sense of movement and camera movement, and learn from that." Lawrence was reportedly quite relaxed through rehearsals; Aronofsky said that he "didn't get to know the character until we started shooting, and she showed up."

Music

Mother! is the first of Aronofsky's films without the involvement of composer Clint Mansell. It initially had a score composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson, but after seeing the 90-minute score synced up with a rough cut of the film, Aronofsky and Jóhannsson agreed not to use it. They tried using the score at only a few moments, then a minimal version of the score with sound design by Craig Henighan, incorporating noises into the soundscape of the house. They ultimately decided the film worked best with no music. Composer Ólafur Arnalds recounted the following story about this decision:

... he had spent a year writing the score for Darren Aronofsky's Mother! and at some point realised that the film was better with no music at all. He proceeded to convince Darren to delete everything. It takes a real, selfless artist to do that. To realise the piece is better without you.

The most important part of creating art is the process, and Jóhann seemed to understand process. The score needed to be written first in order to realise that it was redundant. So in my view, Mother! still has a score by Jóhann. The score is just silence ... deafening, genius silence.

Over the closing credits, the film features a cover of Skeeter Davis's "The End of the World" performed by Patti Smith.

Release

The film was originally scheduled to be released on October 13, 2017, but was moved up to September 15. Its world premiere was at the 74th Venice International Film Festival, where it was selected to compete for the Golden Lion; premiered in London on September 6, 2017; and was screened at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.

Home media

Mother! was released online on December 5, 2017, and on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on December 19.

Sydney mural controversy

In September 2017, street art-based advertising agency Apparition Media painted over a mural in Sydney's Newtown neighborhood with a mural promoting Mother! The original mural, "It's like a jungle sometimes", depicted the streets of Newtown as a jungle with the line referencing Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's song "The Message". It was painted in 2005 by artist Colin Bebe, who told ABC that it represented a period of depression and suicidality. Apparition Media painted over it without council permission, replacing it with a giant portrait of Jennifer Lawrence and the caption "#mothermovie". Much community outrage followed and within hours, the new mural had been vandalized by someone who added: "Fuck off! It really is a jungle sometimes. No respect!" Apparition Media apologized and word of the incident also reached Aronofsky, who tweeted that he was "embarrassed and furious" and would pay for the mural's restoration. The original mural was restored in December 2017.

Reception

Box office

The film grossed $17.8 million in the United States and Canada and $26.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $44.5 million.

In North America, the film was released alongside American Assassin and was projected to gross $12–14 million from 2,368 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $700,000 from Thursday night previews, $3.1 million on its first day, and went on to open to just $7.5 million, finishing third at the box office. Deadline Hollywood attributed the film's underperformance to its controversial narrative, misleading advertisements, and "F" CinemaScore grade. As of April 2020, it is one of only 22 films to receive such a rating. Other publications wrote that the film's CinemaScore grade, which is rare, is typically associated with "a movie that goes out of its way to artfully alienate or confuse audiences." In its second weekend, the film dropped 56.3% to $3.3 million, finishing sixth at the box office.

Aronofsky responded to the film's CinemaScore rating by saying that Mother! was meant to be difficult viewing for audiences: "How if you walk out of this movie are you not going to give it an 'F'? ... We wanted to make a punk movie and come at you. And the reason I wanted to come is because I was very sad and I had a lot of anguish and I wanted to express it."

Critical response

Mother! received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Aronofsky's direction and the performances, particularly those of Lawrence and Pfeiffer, while its biblical allegories and depiction of violence was scrutinized by some news outlets. The film received both boos and a standing ovation during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 68% of 377 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's consensus reads: "There's no denying that Mother! is the thought-provoking product of a singularly ambitious artistic vision, though it may be too unwieldy for mainstream tastes." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 76 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. However, audiences polled by Cinemascore gave the movie a rare average grade of "F" on an A+ to F scale. PostTrak reported filmgoers gave a 51% overall positive and a 33% "definite recommend".

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film three and a half out of four stars, describing it and Aronofsky's direction as an "artist's cry from his own corrupt heart" and "a work of a visionary". He also praised the film's allegorical narrative and the performances of Lawrence, Bardem, and Pfeiffer, and said, positively, that the cinematography "always seems on the verge of exploding". Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips said: "Darren Aronofsky delivers a damning critique of the artist/muse arrangement, even as he admits to its old-fashioned patriarchal simplicity." He also referred to the film and its script as "grandiose and narcissistic and, in quick strokes, pretty vicious," while drawing a similarity to Aronofsky's film Black Swan.

Writing for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw gave the film five stars, saying: "Darren Aronofsky's toweringly outrageous film leaves no gob unsmacked. It is an event-movie detonation, a phantasmagorical horror and black-comic nightmare that jams the narcosis needle right into your abdomen." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club gave the film a B+, writing: "the filmmaking ranks as some of Aronofsky's most skillful". Ben Croll of IndieWire gave the film an A−, noting: "Awash in both religious and contemporary political imagery, Darren Aronofsky's allusive film opens itself to a number of allegorical readings, but it also works as a straight-ahead head rush." In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, Martin Scorsese said: "It was so tactile, so beautifully staged and acted—the subjective camera and the POV reverse angles, always in motion ... the sound design, which comes at the viewer from around corners and leads you deeper and deeper into the nightmare ... the unfolding of the story, which very gradually becomes more and more upsetting as the film goes forward. The horror, the dark comedy, the biblical elements, the cautionary fable—they're all there, but they're elements in the total experience, which engulfs the characters and the viewers along with them. Only a true, passionate filmmaker could have made this picture, which I'm still experiencing weeks after I saw it." In 2025, Scorsese further remarked on being "amazed" by Lawrence's performance and said: "She really is feeling everything that's happening, in what appears to be a dream of some kind." Director William Friedkin praised the film. Filmmaker Denis Villeneuve cited it as among his favorite films.

Accolades

The film's nominations at the 38th Golden Raspberry Awards received backlash from audiences and critics, especially Lawrence's nomination, whose performance was also praised by critics.