Throughout his decorated, award-winning career behind the lens, writer-director Darren Aronofsky has developed a knack for deeply unsettling psychological thrillers.
From Black Swan to Requiem For a Dream, this is a filmmaker who thrives in a very specific corner of mainstream cinema, and after summoning a full-blown biblical epic in 2014’s Noah, Aronofsky is back, back, back with his star-studded home invasion movie, mother!
Anchored by Jennifer Lawrence and one-time James Bond actor Javier Bardem – he played the disfigured Silva for Sam Mendes’ box office darling Skyfall – mother! is the story of a picture-perfect couple whose relationship is placed under threat when two uninvited guests take shelter in their country home. What begins as a forced friendship soon devolves into chaos, as Lawrence’s character begins to uncover a series of clues that connect her significant other (Bardem) with Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer’s strangers.
Well, we say strangers when in reality, today’s new mother! promo all but confirms that those two guests have some sort of a history with Bardem (and perhaps Lawrence, too?). First revealed via Bloody Disgusting, this extended TV spot peels back one of the film’s many layers and, in truth, leaves us with more burning questions than we had before.
Nevertheless, the elevator pitch for mother! describes Aronofsky’s latest as a “very intense” psychological thriller built on three universal themes: love, devotion and sacrifice. They are, in essence, the lifeblood of any long-term relationship, but as is clear from the TV spot above, Bardem and Lawrence’s characters’ life-long bond may not be as ironclad as they initially thought, which ought to fuel some fairly intense and downright unsettling drama within Aronofsky’s latest.
We’ll be able to find out what all the fuss is about when mother! creeps into theaters on September 15th.
