MOVIE: Oh Mother, where art thou? 

NOBODY likes pretentious people. Their constant attempts to impress and belief that what they have to say is more important than everyone else is annoying. 

Pretentiousness can lie dormant for years, perhaps surfacing at a dinner party, or an art exhibition, so has always been difficult to identify. Until now, that is. All you have to do if you suspect your friend may have the pompous gene is send them to see ‘Mother!’. If they gush at how wonderful it is, your suspicions have been confirmed. 

The movie is written/directed by Darren Aronofsky (‘Black Swan’, ‘Noah’) and opens with a long set up of a husband and wife renovating a large house following a devastating fire. 

The husband, known as ‘Him’ (Javier Bardem), is a poet who suffers from writer’s block, and his wife, known as ‘Mother’ (Jennifer Lawrence), well, she likes to renovate. 

When Ed Harris turns up looking for a room for the night, mistakenly thinking the house is a B&B, odd things start happening. Invited by ‘Him’ to stay, things get weirder the following day when more people arrive and begin making themselves at home.

The first part of the movie works well, building suspense as we wonder what on earth is going on, with lots of scenes where Jennifer Lawrence is literally asking that very question. 

This of course only pays off if the answer is something interesting, unexpected or thrilling. In this case, what’s going on is an unintelligible mess; perhaps in Mother’s mind, perhaps not. 

By the finale, you may find yourself covering your eyes and ears in the hope that the deafening madness will soon stop, and thankfully it does, but far too late and with no resolution.    

The film was booed in Venice, yet highbrow critics are falling over themselves to heap praise on what is an emperor’s new clothes shambles of a movie. As they stare at the blank canvass that is ‘Mother!’, the pretentious are terrified they might not “get it”, when, in fact, there is nothing to get. We score it a conceited, 1 out of 5 stars. 

Paul O'Rourke