76
Metascore
51 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The PlaylistJessica KiangThe PlaylistJessica Kiangmother! is something truly magnificent, the kind of visceral trash-arthouse experience that comes along very rarely, means as much or as little as you decide it does, and spits you out into the daylight dazzled, queasy, delirious, and knock-kneed as a newborn calf.
- 100Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganScreen DailyFionnuala HalliganDarren Aronofsky’s churning fever dream mother! is a devouring and restless experience: a creative surge that’s like the lancing of a boil, releasing a torrent of despair and disgust for the greedy chaos of society today as well as a self-loathing portrait of the artist as an emotional succubus.
- 100The TelegraphRobbie CollinThe TelegraphRobbie CollinA sick joke, an urgent warning and a roar into the abyss, Mother! earns its exclamation mark three times over and more.
- 100CineVueJohn BleasdaleCineVueJohn BleasdaleYes, it is pretentious. But pretension is also about ambition and this is cinema that is willing to kick out the lights.
- 100The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawAs horror it is ridiculous, as comedy it is startling and hilarious, and as a machine for freaking you out it is a thing of wonder.
- 91IndieWireBen CrollIndieWireBen Crollmother! begins as a slow-burn and builds towards a furious blaze. Awash in both religious and contemporary political imagery, Darren Aronofsky’s allusive film certainly opens itself to a number of allegorical readings, but it also works as a straight-ahead head rush.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThis is a tale that, like any number of fanciful genre outings, both pulls you in with its intriguing central dramatic situation and pushes you out with some mightily far-fetched plot contrivances.
- 60VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanIts dread has no resonance; it’s a hermetically sealed creep-out that turns into a fake-trippy experience. By all means, go to mother! and enjoy its roller-coaster-of-weird exhibitionism. But be afraid, very afraid, only if you’re hoping to see a movie that’s as honestly disquieting as it is showy.
- 60Mother! is ambitious and dorky, like a Hieronymus Bosch painting redone as swirl-art. It’s entertaining to watch, because it’s not easy to see where it’s going—though you might feel a little underwhelmed when you discover where it ends up. The main reason to keep watching is Lawrence, receptive and radiant.
- 60New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNew York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinFor all its feverish activity, Mother! feels static.