Three things you've really got to know before (or immediately after) seeing Darren Aronofsky's Mother...(saw the movie then a live interview afterward).

I'm fortunate enough to have a good friend who is an Academy member, so I frequently get to see movies at arguably the best theater in Los Angeles, surrounded by industry insiders. And we saw Mother last night. Yes, many in the audience were somewhat confused and more than a few were frustrated. Some streamed out immediately after the movie before the panel discussion. Overheard by the moderator as someone left, "Mr. Aronofsky, I salute you, and I leave you."

But had we known going in some of the stuff Aronofsky told us afterwards, I think the movie would've been much more interesting, cohesive, and impactful.

1. Mother is an allegory for Mother Earth. The house and the Jennifer Lawrence character are inextricably combined. Suffice it to say that this is just not obvious… This was a room of hundreds of filmmakers and their guests (I was a guest) and most of us had not picked that up. We saw that the Jennifer Lawrence character was a mother, connected to this beautiful house that she (re)created, but it took a direct explanation for us to all breathe this collective sigh of "Ahhhh. Okay, I get it." (A bit more on that… Aronofsky wrote this movie thinking about the world we are leaving for our children. And how we're destroying it … You get the picture).

2. This may be a major spoiler so stop reading if you want to make guesses from here on out now that you know the main allegory.

The characters are biblical. The Creator. Adam and a somewhat mischievous Eve. Cain and Abel. I won't go too much more detail but once you know that you can go into the movie with more of an understanding of their actions.

1. Not a spoiler… but something interesting to look for: there are three main camera shots in the movie. Over Jennifer Lawrence's shoulder, from her point of view, and directly on her face. There are only a couple of wide shots of the house and that's it.

A side note...you may also notice that there isn't really a score. The sounds of the house and the activity within are the score. So music doesn't give anything away here. It's doesn't serve to warn you. It's doesn't move the story along. It doesn't build up or calm you down. It's a bold choice but it works.

I, out of the four people I went with, liked the movie the most. And I'm not even the biggest Aronofsky fan of us all. Yes, it is polarizing, but it is also an excellent watch IMO. Mr. Aronofsky felt that it was imperative to make this movie. He called it a howl. And good for him for taking this important risk.

Submitted September 17, 2017 at 08:25AM by she_is_recalibrating http://ift.tt/2wyC4rV