Mother! Review: 5 Ups & 4 Downs

Downs...

4. The Themes Are Surprisingly Shallow

Even the least-astute of viewers will surely pick up fairly early on that Mother! is a film steeped in metaphors and allegories, particularly relating to the Bible and also current environmental concerns regarding the future of Earth.

Unfortunately, Aronofsky lays these ideas on incredibly thickly to the point that there's zero room for subtlety, essentially assaulting the viewer with it to the extent that it's liable to cause heavily divisive responses.

Though what Aronofsky does with this is compelling and exciting at times, for the most part it plays as disappointingly simplistic and smugly self-satisfied. It's really a grab-bag of countless symbolic images and references all blended together into a concoction that's not nearly as smart as it clearly purports to be.

And no, if you call the movie pretentious, you're not merely making an excuse for not understanding it. This is absolutely a movie that insists on itself.