mother!

A masterpiece that leaves a lasting imprint on your mind and soul — thanks to a wonderful cast and great performances from Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson and others, and a truly great idea. The atmosphere is very heavy and dark, which I really like. It’s filled with a huge amount of meaning that can be interpreted in several ways.

Mother! has a lot of biblical references — or it’d be more accurate to say it’s almost a full retelling of the Bible. As someone who grew up religious and still loves religious topics, I really appreciated that. I especially liked the idea of the mother as a mother of Earth — someone that humans (and not only humans) constantly neglect and try to destroy.

After reflecting on the movie, I also realised that the mother character could represent the lost female figure in the Bible and in religion generally — a figure that has always been pushed aside and centred around men. We have a father figure as God and children figures as humans, but we’ve never really heard about or talked about a mother figure: how important she is, since she’s the one who actually gives life and nurtures and protects her children through at least the first months (and sometimes years) of life. That presence has been taken from us for thousands of years.

Motherhood has been neglected and disgraced by patriarchy — treated as something insignificant, something not worth our attention, as if the sacrifices mothers make don’t mean anything at all.

And I love the fact that in this retelling of the Bible we finally get a mother figure — one who is worried, scared, even horrified — trying to protect her home, her child and her family, but left unheard and unseen until it’s way too late. It resonates with real life. God is shown as a typical man — too self-absorbed, too lost in his own admiration, power and greatness. And the mother is left with no support, trying to save a sinking ship — but she can’t do it alone, because it takes two to keep the peace.

And of course, I don’t agree with the very low ratings this movie gets on other platforms. I think this is one of Jennifer Lawrence’s best performances, and I’ll die on this hill!