Mother! (2017)

Mother! (2017)

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ed Harris

Darren Aronofsky isn’t a stranger to playing with themes of Christianity or religion, in fact, right from the get go with his first film Pi (1998), he was already playing with ideas of religion vs. logic. Even when he did Noah (2014) a film based on the biblical tale of Noah’s ark, he twisted the tale in a way that the film actually turned into a critical view of the bible and its teachings instead of a purely “Christian Film”. When I saw Noah, I felt Aronofksy took many fantastical elements from the bible and slapped Christians right in the face with it. What angered Christians about Noah, and part of the reason why the Christian Community didn’t fully embrace that film was because they couldn’t deny that the “craziest” elements from that film where actually in the bible to begin with. This is why I find that Aronofsky’s newest film Mother! (2017), fits right in there with the rest of his cinematic repertoire. Aronofsky has always had a strong critical voice about religion. So, how do his views on religion show up in Mother!?

Mother! is all about this couple who lives out in the sticks in the middle of nowhere. All they want is a bit of peace and quiet. He wants peace in order to work on his writing and she enjoys working on improving her home. Problems begin to develop when uninvited guests being to knock at their door to interrupt their secluded married life. Will these people ever stop coming? What do they want?

This is not a film to be watched like a regular film, it is not “linear” or even literal in any sense of the word, though it starts out that way. Mother! is a film filled with symbolisms, closer to the experience of watching an Alejandro Jodorwsky film, where you aren’t supposed to follow a story line in the traditional sense of the word, but instead, you are asked to interpret what you are watching so that you can understand what the director/writer is trying to say.  That Aronofksy has made this type of film shouldn’t surprise anyone, after all, this is the director of The Fountain (2006), also a risky film, filled with symbolisms. I say risky because American audiences aren’t used to films they have to interpret. American audiences are used to being spoon fed the plot, so I am not surprised that Mother! received such a cold reception at the box office. Aronofksy knew he was making a hard movie to sell, which is why I applaud him for taking the risk of making an honest film that will make us think. It’s so much more refreshing then repetitive dribble regularly projected in movie screens across the world.  

Paramount Pictures actually sent out a press release “apologizing” for Mother! saying that they recognize it isn’t a film for everybody, which is true. What I liked abot their press release was that they didn’t kick the movie in the gut, but rather, stood by it and its filmmaker, defending it by calling Mother! a bold film made by a director and actors at the top of their game.  The backlash from audiences has been brutal, but it’s probably because they don’t understand the film for what it is. I mean, sure its images are shocking, gory, and brutal, but what do they stand for? Could it be that it’s getting this backlash because it’s saying that Christianity is just as gory, shocking and brutal? I’m guessing that’s why it’s being lambasted. Because again, Christianity cannot deny that the savagery seen in the film actually reflects their own beliefs. It’s not nice looking in the mirror and realizing you’re a monster.

Kudos to Aronofsky for doing this. I mean, I was just as shocked as everyone while watching the movie and it succeeds in making you feel something, even if it is horrendous shock. But if you look past the shock, there’s something profound being said here. Not many filmmakers are as brave as Aronofsky.  People are saying its “the worst film they’ve ever seen” and that they “left the theater before it ended” but it’s not because its badly acted or because it doesn’t look beautiful. Lawrence and Bardem are amazing in it. The film looks as beautiful as any other Aronofksy movie, though darker and grimmer for sure. Still, it’s not a badly made film, far from it. 

Lawrence and Aronofksy working out a scene

People are saying its “bad” because they can’t take the shock. So if you can take shock, you’ll have no problem. If you can take strong themes, go see the movie. If you despise religion, politics and hive like mentalities, you’ll dig this film. But if you are a Christian, you’ll probably hate looking at your beliefs represented on film and you’ll hate the fact that you can’t deny that this is what the bible teaches. Awesome movie in my book. Go see it, test your boundaries then interpret what you’ve seen. I applaude Aronofsky and Paramount for making bold, different cinema, keep at it.

Rating: 5 out of 5

A Cure for Wellness (2017)

A Cure for Wellness (2017)

Director: Gore Verbinski

Cast: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth

A good place to start this review would be by mentioning that director Gore Verbinski was at one point attached to direct a film based on an extremely popular and successful video game called Bioshock.  Strangely enough I finished playing all three Bioschock games last week! I was so hooked, I had no social life for a while. I played all three games back to back! Upon finishing the Bioshock trilogy I was left with the notion that these games would in fact make fantastic movies and that if Gore Verbinski, a director I’ve come to admire, was going to be the one helming the film adaptation, I could rest assured It would be good adaptation. Sadly, just eight weeks before the film was to begin shooting, and after much pre-production, Universal got cold feet because Verbinski wanted the film to be a hard ‘R’ rated violent film and the studio didn’t want to risk 200 million on a big budget horror film. So Universal Studios pulled the plug on the project. Apparently Verbinski really had an itching to make that film because here comes a not surprisingly similar idea in the form of A Cure for Wellness (2017). So are the rumors true? Is this film heavily influenced by the game? And video game connections aside, was the film any good?

A Cure for Wellness tells the story of a young businessman named Lockhart, who is sent by his superiors to bring back his company’s CEO. You see, the rich old man went on a trip to the Swiss Alps to visit a ‘Wellness Spa’ and ended up never coming back. Lockhart’s mission is to bring him back at any cost because the future of the company is hanging on the balance of this one mission. The mysterious “spa” is rumored to have these curative waters, which can heal people, and quite possibly, give them immortality! Is it all on people’s minds? Or is there something else at work here? Will Lockhart ever return from the Spa that no one returns from?

So yes, the film does in fact have many, many things in common with Bioschock. It has leeches, it has lighthouses, it has crazy old people hell bent on “perfection” and beauty. It involves the idea of sucking the life out of people, so yeah, fans of Bioshock will find a special delight in seeing this film because it is in fact sort of like a Bioschock film, without the more expensive elements of the game, like having an entire city underwater. But even though it does have similarities to these games, it’s also very much its own thing. Video games similarities aside, the good news is that I truly enjoyed this creepy as hell movie. It’s the kind of old school horror film that does not in any way rely on jump scares, or cheap loud noises to creep you out.  Nope, these scares are well orchestrated my friends! The last time that Gore Verbinski took a stab at horror was with The Ring (2002) and I remember being blown away by that one the first time I saw it in theaters. It was a PG-13 horror film that showed me that when a filmmaker truly tries, the PG-13 rating doesn’t even matter! Of course, when a film is R rated you can go further and Verbinski really milks his ‘R’ rating in A Cure for Wellness. There are some truly gruesome bits here, but there’s also the intensity of the very adult thematic elements.

Verbinski gives the whole film this classy vibe, this felt like an old school horror film. How refreshing is it to see a horror film not aimed at teenagers? Where there isn’t a comic relief character saying stupid jokes after something frightening happens? I thank the horror gods that finally, here’s a horror movie through and through, trying its hardest to creep you out by slowly building on the terror and the paranoia, instead of treating us like idiots. So my hats down to Verbinski, this felt like a true horror film. It sinks you into the horror and then goes further, darker. The atmospheric elements on this film were handled splendidly. I notice how hard Verbinski was attempting to hold onto that dreadful atmosphere all the time. He made sure there were gloomy clouds, lonely hallways, creepy looking characters, a dreadful color palette. To me the best horror films are those that don’t let go of the atmosphere, as an audience, we like to stay in that spooky world and we want that spooky vibe all the time, and on this film we get it. From the spooky castle at the top of the hill, to the gloomy weather and the spooky ghost like young girl that looms around the spa, Gorvinski was trying to evoke doom, dread and isolation. He achieved it in my book. From a visual standpoint the film is fantastic. Verbinski succeeded in creating amazing visuals with this one. Like Kubrick, you could pause many moments on this film and they’d feel like a painting. There’s a lot of play with colors on this film, but not the kind that pop out, instead this film shows us muted colors that send the image of death and decay to our brains. And if its not grimmy dirty, its neat and almost too perfect. A clinical sort of perfection, which augments how some of the characters search for it.

And speaking about the films influences, well, they were all over the place. Starting with the most obvious one: Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973). A Cure for Wellness definitely follows that formula  in which the main character is falling into the spider’s web, little by little. He doesn’t realize what he is getting himself into until it is too late. It brought to mind other films like Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Martin Scorcese’s Shutter Island (2010) and even Roman Polansky’s Rosermary’s Baby (1968), the latter when it comes to the music on this film, which is perfect on certain scenes. So yeah, I loved it to death. It’s a film that explores the very nature of religion and why it exists. Why are people afraid to leave a cult? Why do we end up feeling like religion will save us? Why do we search for it? Do we need it? So here we have a film that plays with important themes, it’s not just another empty horror film. On the downside, the film does run for two hours and a half, I personally didn’t mind them because I find this theme fascinating, but I’m sure some audiences will grow impatient. My best advice would be to go into it expecting a slow burner that at the end will be worth the trip. At times I felt it was going too slow for its own good, but then bang, it reeled me in again. I saw it last night and ended up dreaming I was in that damned spa! Also, I feel like a second viewing is needed to truly absorb this one, it has a lot of story to it. Basically, I was a satisfied costumer with this movie.

Rating: 4 out of 5