Probably the most divisive film of the year is the latest film from acclaimed writer/director Darren Aronofsky, mother! For those of you that have the “experience” of watching the film, which stars Oscar Winner Jennifer Lawrence, will know exactly what we mean whereas, for those who haven’t yet had the pleasure of watching it, you may well have been put off by the talk around the film.
In the US, the film took in around .5million is the US in its opening weekend, whilst it took around £832,000 in the UK and such is the marmite effect that film is having that some have stayed away from seeing it in the cinema. Additionally, the film received an “F” rating from CinemaScore, the cumulative rating from cinemagoers from the opening night of the film and joined such films as I Know Who Killed Me, Killing Them Softly and Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris to have been given such a rating.
Aronofsky himself has had his say on the reaction and the rating and said that the film is supposed to “come at you” and that it is designed to provoke opinions. Speaking to The Frame, Aronofsky said:
What’s interesting about that is, like, how if you walk out of this movie are you not going to give it an “F?” It’s a punch. It’s a total punch. And I realize that we were excited by that. We wanted to make a punk movie and come at you. And the reason I wanted to come is because I was very sad and I had a lot of anguish and I wanted to express it. Filmmaking is such a hard journey.
“People are constantly saying no to you. And to wake up every morning and get out of bed and to face all those no’s, you have to be willing to really believe in something. And that’s what I look for in my collaborators and what I pitched the actors I said, Look, this isn’t going to be a popularity contest. We’re basically holding up a mirror to what’s going on. All of us are doing this. But that final chapter hasn’t been written and hopefully things can change. And, to go back, the fact that it’s going down right now and things are really falling apart in a way that is really scary.
It’s scary when you talk to the people who are studying this and thinking about this and then you have other people who basically believe in the power of a iPhone that they can communicate to 35 million people in a blink of an eye, yet they don’t believe in science in other ways. You know, which is as proven as gravity at this point, really. It has as many people believe in it as believe in gravity. And it scares me and it’s time to start screaming. So I wanted to howl. And this was my howl. And some people are not going to want to listen to it. That’s cool.
Co-starring Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domnhall Gleeson and Kristen Wiig, mother! is in cinemas now.
