Mother!

After 2014's Noah, 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.[6] 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."[7]

Jennifer Lawrence was reportedly in talks to join the film by October 2015[8] and, by January 2016, Javier Bardem was also in talks to star.[9] In March, it was announced Kristen Wiig had been cast in the film[10] and, by April, Domhnall Gleeson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ed Harris, and Brian Gleeson were added to the cast.[11]

Principal photography began on June 13, 2016, and concluded on August 28, 2016.[12] 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."[6]

Mother! was the first of Aronofsky's films without the involvement of composer Clint Mansell.[13] 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.[14] 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.[15]

Over the closing credits, the film features a cover of Skeeter Davis's "The End of the World" performed by Patti Smith.[16]

Mother! was released digitally on December 5, 2017, and was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on December 19.[23][24] It is available to stream on Paramount+.

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, against a production budget of $30 million.[2]

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.[25] 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 and marking the worst debut for a film in which Lawrence had top billing. Deadline Hollywood attributed the film's underperformance to its controversial narrative, misleading advertisements, and "F" CinemaScore grade[26] (as of April 2020, it is one of only 22 films to receive such a rating).[27] Other publications wrote that the film's CinemaScore grade, which is extremely rare, is typically associated with "a movie that goes out of its way to artfully alienate or confuse audiences."[28][29] In its second weekend, the film dropped 56.3% to $3.3 million, finishing sixth at the box office.[30]

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."[31]

Mother! received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Aronofsky's direction and the performances, particularly those of Lawrence and Pfeiffer,[32][33][34] while its biblical allegories and depiction of violence sparked controversy.[35][36][37] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 69% based on 378 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10; the website's critical 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."[38] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on reviews from 51 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[39] The film received both boos and a standing ovation during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.[40] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "F" on an A+ to F scale, making it one of twenty-two films to receive the score, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave a 51% overall positive and a 33% "definite recommend".[26]

Owen Gleiberman of Variety, in a positive review of the film, called Mother! "a piece of ersatz humanity", and wrote: "By all means, go to Mother! and enjoy its roller-coaster-of-weird exhibitionism. But be afraid, very afraid, only if you're hoping to see a movie that's as honestly disquieting as it is showy."[41] 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".[42] 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.[43]

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."[44] Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club gave the film a B+, writing: "the filmmaking ranks as some of Aronofsky's most skillful".[45] 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."[46] 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."[47] Director William Friedkin praised the film.[48]

Rex Reed gave the film zero stars in The New York Observer, and wrote that, despite some good cinematography, "Nothing about Mother! makes one lick of sense as Darren Aronofsky's corny vision of madness turns more hilarious than scary. With so much crap around to clog the drain, I hesitate to label it the 'Worst movie of the year' when 'Worst movie of the century' fits it even better." Reed further dismissed other critics' positive reviews of the film as "equally pretentious" and "even nuttier than the film itself. ... they all insist Mother! is a metaphor for something, although they are not quite sure what it is."[49] Similarly, The New Republic's Jo Livingstone stated that the film has "no human center to hold it down."[50] Anthony Lane wrote in his review in New Yorker that "My patience was tested beyond repair, I am afraid, by the nimbus of nonsense."[51] In The Wall Street Journal, John Anderson said: "it achieves a level of excess that makes the whole enterprise increasingly cartoonish, rather than just awful."[52] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film two out of four stars, writing that, while he appreciated Lawrence's performance, he questioned whether Aronofsky was mocking certain biblical passages featured in the film or presenting a commentary on an artistic process.[53] Writing for The Washington Post, Anne Hornaday gave the film two stars, saying: "Even Lawrence's magnetic powers can't keep Mother! from going off the rails, which at first occurs cumulatively, then in a mad rush during the film's outlandish climax."[54]

Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star Ledger wrote: "one part early Roman Polanski, one part pseudo Harold Pinter, and two parts apology-from-a-driven-artist. And none of it adds up. The feeble idea behind Mother! isn't strong enough to bear the weight of all the overwrought style he hangs on it. Unlike the mansion it's set in, it's a small, hammered-together thing, and it can't bear all this meaning and metaphor."[55] Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly said: "Darren Aronofsky's Mother! is Rosemary's Baby amped up into a fugue state of self-indulgent solipsism. He's an artist. And he really wants you to know that he's been thinking a lot about what that means. Unfortunately, his gaze is so deep into his own navel that it's just exasperating."[56] David Edelstein of New York magazine shrugged off the film and any talk of its craft, writing: "Most of the dialogue and effects are clunky, repetitive, second rate."[57]

The film's nominations at the 38th Golden Raspberry Awards received backlash from audiences and critics, especially Lawrence's nomination, whose performance was praised by critics.[58][59][60][61]