MOTHER!

Cert Running time

Jennifer Lawrence is back on Oscar worthy form with this fist-in-themouth horror. It’s a nightmarish fantasy of biblical madness from the director who dared to cast Russell Crowe on a sea of trouble as Noah. Billed only as Mother, she plays the wife of a writer who spends her time lovingly restoring their grand old farmhouse home, to which she seems to have an almost supernatural connection.

A fan of the writer calls by and her husband invites him to stay the night. The next day the stranger’s family arrive, bringing with them chaos and violence.

Still only 27, Lawrence has every chance of a fifth Academy award nomination and a possible second statuette for this phenomenal and punishing performance.

Despite its early moments of dark humour, Mother! is a very different movie from the romcom Silver Linings Playbook for which Lawrence won the Best Actress Oscar in 2013.

A welcome temporary lull in her blockbuster commitment to the X-Men superhero franchise allows her to team up with indie darling Darren Aronofsky.

The writer/director inspired Mickey Rourke to a nomination in 2009 for The Wrestler and guided Natalie Portman to an Academy award in his 2010 horror, Black Swan.

He does his absolute utmost to repeat a similar trick here.

His camera almost sits on Lawrence’s shoulders, immersing