Very recently the studio behind MOTHER! – Paramount – came to the defense of the movie after it was met with horrid fan reception and a dismal opening weekend. Good or bad everyone seems to have an opinion, and now it’s time for the movie’s star – Jennifer Lawrence – to give her response to the movie’s reception.
Never shy to come out and discuss her own movies (much like she did with PASSENGERS recently), Lawrence talked about how they knew from the get-go they were doing something interesting, and that they knew it would be a success as long as it got people talking – for better or worse:
No, not at all. The people who love it love it and want to see it another time. The people who don’t like, absolutely despise it. There is no middle ground. We knew that it was divided. That’s what so exciting — everybody is going to feel something. It’s going to create a conversation. It’s going to create a controversy. Nobody is going to leave not getting something from it.
Given the fact it was made by Aronofsky and starred Lawrence the movie was approached with lots of hype, with comparisons being made to Roman Polanski’s ROSEMARY’S BABY. The movie was met with only decent reviews from critics, though, and audiences gave it an extremely rare F Cinemascore. For the movie’s opening weekend, MOTHER! only amassed $7 million while IT continued to dominate. Even if this does leave a black mark on Lawrence’s record, she’s still more than thrilled to have done the flick, citing it as one of the most “unique” and “brave” films she had ever heard of:
It was the most unique sounding movie I’d ever heard, and incredibly brave. I feel like there’s different schools of thought on this movie. Some think: don’t tell anyone anything, let them figure it out on their own. I feel like it’s better to know and understand the metaphor and allegories because then you know what you are looking at. I’ve been spilling the themes and metaphors all over town!
I have yet to see MOTHER!, so I can’t speak to it as a film. But I always knew it wouldn’t do well financially and that mainstream audiences would have a negative view of it. That’s just how the masses respond to lower-key, non-mainstream horror flicks. Critical darlings like THE WITCH and IT FOLLOWS have been met with middling audience reception, and it’s never an easy sell to market a non-traditional horror flick. MOTHER! has achieved a different kind of success by being such a talking point, which is something that doesn’t apply to massive blockbusters. People should watch it, then discuss it with people. Who knows, perhaps it can become a huge cult classic.
MOTHER! is in theaters now.