SECOND SCREEN
At the recent Venice Film Festival, Darren Aronofsky’s new film, Mother! (18) HH, definitely divided critics, picking up reviews ranging from five-star eulogies to one-star excoriations. I found myself subscribing to both views; one after the other. The first half is surprising and rather good (although five stars would be pushing it) but the second half is a chaotic, indulgent and eventually rather disgusting mess.
Aronofksy unsettles us from the start with a shot of a woman apparently burning to death. Then he dazzles us as a derelict house is brought almost magically back to life before our eyes. It is here than an unnamed young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) lives with her significantly older husband (Javier Bardem). Their agreed division of labour is that she will restore the house while he writes. But he’s blocked and can’t write a word. Their idyllic-looking relationship in this idyllic-looking house is beginning to crumble. And then their first apparently uninvited guest (Ed Harris) arrives, closely followed by his direct and unsettlingly sexy wife (Michelle Pfeiffer). But does the husband really not know the newcomers? There seems to be a strange connection between them that the younger woman doesn’t