What Does The Ending Of mother! Really Mean?

Let's get this out of the way immediately shall we? mother! is weird. Like really, really, really f*cking weird. It's the kind of film that would play at Cannes and delight all sorts of people who'd stand and applaud as others walked out loudly tutting. It's Darren Aronofsky's Holy Motors. His Only God Forgives. And it's going to be talked about a lot.

There's a very good chance that quite a few of the words spoken about it will be a variation of WHAT THE ACTUAL F*CK?! But you get the sense that that's exactly what the director was aiming for. And judging by Paramount's statement on the reaction to the film, they knew it as well:

"This movie is very audacious and brave. You are talking about a director at the top of his game, and an actress at the top of her game. They made a movie that was intended to be bold," says Paramount's worldwide president of marketing and distribution Megan Colligan. We don't want all movies to be safe. And it's okay if some people don't like it."

It's fair to say the film has been divisive, but if art is judged solely on its ability to make you feel, Aronofsky - provocateur that he is - has achieved something incredibly impressive. mother! is a viscerally affecting experience, steeped in religious imagery and horror tropes (though not as overtly as the trailers suggested).

And as some of the more provocative critics who loved it have said, maybe there's just a slight touch of audiences not quite understanding what he was trying to say. Luckily, the remedy for that is unpacking the ending and trying to establish exactly what Aronofsky was trying to say. Or what he was trying to encourage his audience to think about broadly, which is probably a more relevant consideration...