Mother! Review: 5 Ups & 4 Downs

Ups...

5. Jennifer Lawrence's Mesmerising Performance

Jennifer Lawrence gives easily one of her best performances to date as a character credited simply as "Mother", a young woman married to a successful poet (Javier Bardem) riddled with writer's block.

Though there seems to be a back-and-forth love-hate relationship between audiences and Lawrence, she again proves why she's one of the best actresses of her generation with a thoroughly tortured turn that's incredibly hard to shake.

The film largely hinges on her work because Aronofsky shoots so much of it in close-up, her reactions selling the abject horror of the increasingly twisted scenario.

She won't be getting any Oscar nominations for it as many initially expected, in part because the film is built to be so polarising, but it's incredibly strong work all the same.