Darren Aronofsky seldom makes conventional or straightforward films, and his latest project mother! looks like one of his most bizarre movies to date. Theories about the film's real meaning have ranged from a simple horror-thriller to a backdoor Rosemary's Baby remake, but now the Black Swan director has spoken out to give us a clearer idea of what's coming. Apparently, at its core, Aronofsky views mother! as an allegory for the mistreatment and destruction of our planet. Aronofsky explained:
It really has to do with the allegory of the film and what we're trying to do there. If you think about Day 6 in your history and in your bibles, you'll kind of figure out where the film starts... Most of my films take many, many years to come to life. Black Swan was 10 years. Noah was 20 years. And this film happened in five days. It was the strangest thing. It came out of living on this planet and sort of seeing what's happening around us and not being able to do anything. I just had a lot of rage and anger and I just wanted to channel it into one emotion, one feeling.
So the meaning of the title translates to the traditional idea of Mother Earth, with Jennifer Lawrence's character (literally credited as "mother") representing the human embodiment of that concept. Portrayed as submissive and unable to fight back, her character takes the abuse and damage doled out to her by the other characters in the film, and bears the burden of those around her. In this way, Aronofsky is saying that it's comparable to the way in which (in his own opinion) the Earth can do nothing but sit in space as humanity takes advantage of it, continues its "endless consumption," and contributes to global warming. Because this core idea stems from living in the real world, he also says the story flowed out of him much faster than most of his other movies.
Darren Aronofsky's comments to THR actually makes quite a bit of sense when we look at the way in which the film has been marketed, as well as what we've been shown of Jennifer Lawrence's character. Much of the promotional material featuring Lawrence has depicted her as an innocent-looking woman surrounded by nature. Moreover, her character seldom (if ever) wears shoes in the movie, which lends a naturalistic, almost Garden of Eden-esque sensibility to her character.
With a little over a week left until the movie hits theaters, check out a trailer for mother! below to see more of Darren Aronofsky's bizarre new film.
The new movie mother! has already screened for critics, and the film will debut in theaters later this month on September 15. Looking ahead to the rest of this year, take a look at our movie premiere guide for more information on the rest of 2017's biggest and most highly anticipated silver screen debuts.
