Pfeiffer returns in ‘mother!’

Aronofsky’s film internationally shrouded in mystery

NEW YORK, Sept 13, (Agencies): When Michelle Pfeiffer first read Darren Aronofsky’s script for “mother!” she had an understandable initial reaction.

“I thought: What the hell is this?” recalls Pfeiffer.

Aronofsky’s film is not in any way typical, nor is the kind of project you’d expect a long-absent actress like Pfeiffer to join as her first big-screen performance in five years. The film, intentionally shrouded in mystery, is a wild and weird odyssey by one of the movies’ expert conjurers of dark, surreal dream worlds that suspend its viewers — and often its performers, too — in a vividly atmospheric state of paranoia.

“You don’t even know, really, how to talk about it,” says Pfeiffer, as if throwing up her hands, in a recent interview.

But one of the many mysteries worth pondering in Darren Aronofsky’s allegorical thriller is a simple one: Why don’t we see Pfeiffer more often? The good news is that “mother!” represents the start of what may be a kind of renaissance for the 59-year-old actress, whose steely beauty and cool, piercing intelligence remains just as devastating.

“I’m really excited to be back,” says Pfeiffer. “Especially having worked with these exciting actors and these directors who I so admire. The most exciting for me is all of these really talented people that I’m able to do movies with.”

Along with “mother!” which Paramount Pictures will release Friday, Pfeiffer co-stars in Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming, more old-fashioned mystery “Murder on the Orient Express.” She has joined the cast of the “AntMan” sequel and earlier this year premiered the Sundance Film Festival entry “Where is Kyra?” in which she plays a woman struggling to survive

their apartment in suburban Phoenix.

Tempe police say Nicholas Van Varenberg was arrested Sunday night on suspicion of aggravated assault with a in Brooklyn on her ailing mother’s income. She also received an Emmy nomination for her chain-smoking Ruth Madoff in Barry Levinson’s HBO movie “The Wizard of Lies.”

It’s a flurry of activity for Pfeiffer, who says she pulled back partially to focus on family. She and her husband, the TV producer David E. Kelley, who live in northern California, have two children. Now an empty-nester, Pfeiffer has eagerly returned to regular work.

“She wasn’t on my mind because she hadn’t worked for a while,” says Aronofsky. “My casting director mentioned that she was interested in working again. I was immediately excited and interested by the idea of it. It’s been a while so I wasn’t so sure where she was at. But once we started to talk, it was amazing.”

Aronofsky (“Black Swan,” “Requiem for a Dream”), long a fan of Pfeiffer, was impressed by her still sharp skills.

Different

“I just wanted to applaud her at different times during the movie because she does things that are so hard to do,” he says. “Like those things where someone says something in the moment and you’re supposed to react in the moment with surprise or embarrassment and she was doing it take after take.”

Jennifer Lawrence stars in the film as the sweet and sensitive wife to Javier Bardem’s poet. They live in beautifully natural, labyrinthine house in the country, but they are soon beset by visitors, beginning with a man who shows up at the door (Ed Harris), who’s followed by his wife (Pfeiffer) and then others. The movie grows in intensity with the sensation of invasion; Aronofsky conceived it as a kind of allegory for an overrun Mother Earth.

“I have these dreams sometimes,”

deadly weapon, unlawful imprisonment, marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia. He’s out of jail after posting a $10,000 bond. says Pfeiffer. “I’m in some house and I have to be somewhere or I have to do something and I can’t get out. I can’t find my way out. I know there’s some disaster looming ahead and I know it’s coming and no one will listen to me. This is like a really, really bad nightmare. It’s like your worst nightmare and you can’t wake up from it.”

After her Oscar-nominated breakthrough role in 1989’s “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” Pfeiffer became one of the top actresses in Hollywood, stringing together a varied filmography including “Dangerous Minds,” “Batman Returns,” “The Age of Innocence” and “What Lies Beneath.” That made her intimidating to her younger co-star.

“It took me two days to get over her beauty, and to go up to her and say hi,” Lawrence told reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival. “She’s very normal. She’s a mother. She’s a very smart woman.”

She is also a still-adventurous actress who was willing to go well out of her comfort zone for “mother!” Pfeiffer considers the film “a real leap of faith” since she went in with only a partial understanding of it, along with a director whom she says would sometimes leave the cast in the dark on the finer points of the drama.

Aronofsky’s “mother!” — about a woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who lives with her husband (Javier Bardem) on a deserted farmhouse — has generated more debate than any film to debut at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The Paramount Pictures release, which opens on Friday, has been shrouded in mystery, and critics are still trying to piece together what it all means. “I wanted to make a film about Mother Nature,” Aronofsky told Variety. “So we’re working on an allegorical level, where it’s dealing with these big symbols.”

Van Varenberg didn’t have a lawyer at his initial court appearance, and it’s unclear if he has one yet with a Sept 20 preliminary hearing looming.

Court documents released Tuesday say police went to the apartment after receiving reports about loud noise and yelling. (AP)

SPOKANE, Washington:

Four members of a Polish death metal band arrested on charges of kidnapping a Washington state woman are also suspected of sexually assaulting her after a concert during a party on the band’s tour bus, according to court documents.

The documents made public Monday said the assault by the members of Decapitated happened in the bathroom of the tour bus following the Aug 31 concert in Spokane, Washington.

The band members were arrested Saturday in Santa Ana, California, for investigation of first degree kidnapping. The four men appeared in court in Los Angeles Tuesday and waived extradition to Washington, KABC-TV reported.

Steve Graham, a lawyer for the band members, said in an email that the members of “Decapitated plan to fully fight the allegations that have been brought against them and are confident that their side of the story will be heard.” (AP)