First let me say that this post will have spoilers, so if you haven’t watched the film yet and plan to, consider yourself warned.
SPOILER ALERT!
I entered the cinema expecting to get scared, like when I watched It (1990) or The others (2001). Expecting to sleep with the lights on for a couple of weeks, expecting to be introduced to new kind of ghosts, a history of violence in a haunted house. But the film didn’t give me those ghosts and haunted house that I expected and left the cinema disappointed. But…
just because I didn’t find the scary ghosts that I thought I would find doesn’t make Mother! a terrible film. On the contrary, the film forces you to think differently about what are the ghosts in this film, what is the director trying to tell you with this film? Is he trying to tell you anything? Does he want you to make your own conclusion based on his pictures? Is the film based on religion? Is he a narcissistic God or a Devil? What is she? A condemned soul?
Fairly soon after the film starts, it’s easy to see that he is the issue in this house and she really is the heart and soul of the house, she is the mother, she is home. She is nesting, feeling the house, restauring the house, taking care of him, doing her outmost to avid to disturb him. He’s a writer and apparently has a writer’s block and she is trying to say to him that it is okay. She seems to be a girl married to a dominant man. It’s a 3 part film, a sandwich, first she is nervous, his writer’s block and the strangers in their house, then the rosery period with her pregnancy where he manages to write again and publish his book, that lastly turns into a things that just spirals the story downwards. This is where you really gets confused, because normally there are absolutely no outside persons in their life. No grocery shopping, no mail man, no family visits, no phone calls, and suddenly the doorbell…
For a film that is listed as horror, drama, mystery on Imdb.com I kinda expect to get spooked, and for me that didn’t really happen. As soon as it started to build up a scare, nothing happens. However I would like to watch it again. The film has so many different angles to it, so many ways to see it, and this is one of the few and very rare films where you can make your own conclusions on what you see.