![Jennifer Lawrence stars in Aronofsky's new film 'mother!' / [Source: Youtube]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/9/18/660x290/b_502x220x82/jennifer-lawrence-stars-in-aronofskys-new-film-mother-source-youtube_1578621.jpg "Jennifer Lawrence stars in Aronofsky's new film 'mother!' / [Source: Youtube]")
Darren Aronofsky's latest film, "Mother!," has successfully isolated audiences nationwide, as the film received the lowest possible score on Cinemascore, a website that polls audiences at opening night screenings of movies to gauge general audience reaction to the latest releases. Few films fall below the B-range on Cinemascore, but the polarizing psychological thriller was able to draw an abysmal F rating.
"Mother!" tells the story of a husband and wife couple who live isolated in an idyllic country home. The couple, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, are never referred to by name, and are only credited as "Mother" and "Him." This is because the film is less a story about a wife trying to renovate her home so that her poet husband can feel properly inspired, and more so a bitter, cruel allegory about Western civilization.
As such, Aronofsky does not hold back brutality and anger in his latest. Aronofsky, who is no stranger to disturbing imagery in films like "Requiem for a Dream" and "Black Swan," brings to "Mother!" sequences of increasing torment and aggression that plague Lawrence's character as she tries to maintain some semblance of rationality and order to her home.
Understanding audience hatred toward 'mother!'
One scene late in the film is a likely culprit for most audience's distaste for "Mother!," as it depicts subversion and violence in a way that is immediately unsettling.
The lofty ambition of Aronofsky's vision may also be cause for some audience's aversion to the film. The film is not your average psychological thriller.
It is an increasingly frantic mixed bag of metaphors that attempt to make sense of a Western world that is plagued by disaster, distrust, and misplaced aggression. In the thick of these metaphors is plenty of religious allegory and womb-like symbolism that may read too artsy for a mainstream audience. Some of the images in the film externalize conceptual, often ambiguous things in ways that keep "mother!" from being a straightforward or conventional film.
While the F from audiences is not echoed by all critics (the film currently holds a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a fresh but not "Certified Fresh" cumulative score), it is easy to understand why audiences are becoming detractors of Aronofsky's latest. Aronofsky's "Black Swan," arguably the film that has given him the most mainstream attention, may have dipped its toe into some macabre and unsettling imagery, but it did not go to the extreme lengths of "mother!." Thus, it is understandable that even those familiar with Aronofsky from "Black Swan" may still balk at the extremity of his latest film.
With its new Cinemascore rating, "mother!" now joins the likes of universally-panned films such as the 2006 remake of "The Wicker Man" and divisive films like "Killing Them Softly," which shooed away audiences while dazzling critics. While not particularly surprising, it raises the question of who is to blame for this audience isolation. Is marketing at fault, or is it the artistic vision of a director who had some demons to exorcise? I'll let you decide for yourself on that one.
"mother!" is currently playing in theaters nationwide.
