Save MOTHER!, Please

To say mother!‘s underperformance over the weekend hurt me is like saying Jennifer Lawrence’s titular ‘character’ is a bit pissed off in the berserk final act of Darren Aronofsky’s latest project.

The hard-to-categorize feature-length opened on Friday in the UK, US and many other major territories around the world, enshrouded in complete mystery: typical of Aronofsky’s now signature style, the metaphor-heavy picture, marketed as a home invasion come psychological horror genre piece, opened with a $7.5 million weekend in the US and barely scraped the $1 million mark in the UK. For a $30 million-budgeted major studio release, it looks like a disaster of biblical proportions.

And the prophecy reads unfavourably bleak for its future

Cinemascore – a company who survey randomly-selected audiences in five different US cities on the film’s opening day – reported on Saturday that Aronofsky’s film had been awarded the infamous F grade. Joining just nineteen other films in the movie polling company’s 38-year history, it is a sign that audiences either hated the film and/or audiences felt deceived by the end product through misleading advertising and promotion. For mother!, it’s likely a combination of the two, although leaning slightly towards the latter.

If you look at the definition of marmite films, you will see it is under renovation to include the poster of mother!. While fans in those select screenings may have flawed the film, the real consensus is a little more split – while Film Twitter™ can become an echo chamber at times, the consensus between my fellow film critics was completely divisive; even here in the Film Inquiry staff chatroom, the consensus was varied, with lovers and loathers alike.

When reviews started to first drip in, it held a 100% approval rating for the first dozen or so reviews, registering an 8.0+ average score. However, outside the festival setting, and as Aronofsky’s twisted project spread across the globe, the scores were greatly weathered by the film’s avid detractors and it currently sits at a 68% approval rating. Ratings from both sides of the spectrum can be frequently spotted, with superlatives like ‘best’ and ‘worst’ flying around left, right and centre.

If the start of World War 3 doesn’t end us all with nuclear warheads, the rest of the fight will be fought by the ardent lovers and the vehement haters of mother!

Making sense of mother!’s underperformance

We can condense mother!‘s weak box office performance down to a number of variables:

Firstly, and arguably most damaging, mother!‘s F grade is a stain against its name for wider audiences. There is the general misconception that an F rating denotes a terrible film: while that may be the case in some instances, it would appear that audiences felt more deceived by mother!, evident through the numerous extremely positive reviews (including my own) that coexist alongside the highly-critical ones. Even still, the F grade inspired terrible word-of-mouth due to its connotations with the word ‘failure’, which placed it beyond the point of no return for many no longer willing to give it the time of day.

mother! wasn’t the home-invasion horror-thriller audiences expected and was positioned as throughout its marketing. The intense allegorical narrative was completely disregarded by the trailers and promotional content plumped for something more easily sellable to wider audiences, both to conceal the surprise and hide it from audiences more resistant to something heavy, of a certain uniqueness. With audiences settling down to watch a more conventional horror, they were clearly unpleasantly surprised when something of a little more depth was presented to them. They felt foolish and they felt angry and took it out on the Cinemascore survey.

What’s more, mother! is a film you need to let stew. Leaving the screening in a trance, I was unsure whether I loved or loathed it – after a few minutes I settled firmly on loving it, which translated to adoration as I poured myself over theories and interpretations in the following hours/days/who are we kidding, probably weeks, if not months. Without being too defensive, it seems unfair to force audiences to rate and rank a film so unique and bold just seconds after consuming it (and minutes after some of film’s most controversial scenes ever were delivered to unsuspecting cinemagoers).

Jennifer Lawrence attracts a certain demographic to her films, particularly off the back of her role as Katniss Everdeen in the The Hunger Games franchise. She’s a movie star in her own right, with a very devoted fanbase that spurred the Young Adult franchise to a nearly $3 billion total across its four films. I would argue she is one of the few remaining Hollywood figures who can attract an audience through her name alone. They expect a very certain film from her – either a Hollywood action and/or superhero tentpole; a drama as David O’Russell‘s number one muse; or, more generally, as an Oscar darling, with four nominations in her back pocket. Something very squarely in the mainstream, with the Indies she broke out with making very much a thing of the past. mother! broke the mould, and in her stride to make something more ambitious, audiences felt alienated and hoodwinked by her and it.

In terms of box office numbers, The Hunger Games star always engaged a younger-skewing audience who may have been prevented from seeing it by its 18/R-rating, hence why mother! is Lawrence’s lowest-grossing opening weekend since she became a breakout A-lister after Winter’s Bone. We should never have expected particularly high numbers, as popular as Lawrence is – but the $7.5 million opening weekend is lower than even the most pessimistic projections predicted.

Other than that, and outside of mother!’s direct control, is the staggering performance of Stephen King’s It and their general proximity as horror films – albeit on very opposite ends of the genre spectrum, they no doubt shared audiences, but most leaned (in all due respect) towards the more conventional, straightforward horror. You can understand why, as frustrating as that is (and I like It a lot).

What could they have done to save mother!?

Honestly, not a lot.

Pushing it later a week or two may have helped remove it from It’s radar slightly and encourage more people to see it before the hate crept in – but any financial improvements would have been minor. Maybe it could have eluded to its metaphorical-heavy narrative through trailers – but they did try in the two weeks leading up to the release (including Lawrence’s wildly fabricated comparison to Mother Earth’s rage about Donald Trump’s presidency), and it would have ruined the surprise for those that ended up loving it.

People have also been asking why mother! didn’t start as a platform release and expand wide over a few weeks. While it may have avoided a Cinemascore completely due to a staggered release (although wildly different films, Oscar-darling La La Land didn’t receive a grade because the release was so spread out, unfurling slowly over months), the highly divisive word will have still crept out. It could not have possibly maintained momentum with such damning reviews overpowering the conversation – although it could have stirred up the controversy and ‘must-see’ aspect of the film without an F attached, I’m not sure it would have worked all that efficiently.

I do think a platform release would have dampened the positive reviews, too. What’s brilliant about mother! is how absolutely crazy and berserk it is willing to go; like it or loathe it, it is completely unique and its inventiveness and boldness has factored in largely to the glowing reports. Early word, unavoidable spoilers and any insight into that final act would have completely damaged the excitement and anticipation of the thrill-ride we were in for.

Going in-for-the-kill with a wide release was the only feasible option. Either way, it was probably going to be a lose-lose situation. While that Cinemascore crushed mother!‘s prospects, I’d much prefer that than having the surprise and shock factor diluted by discussion from people who had seen it weeks before most of us would even have it unleashed on us. And it got people talking. All publicity is good publicity, right? Erm, well…

Why should we care?

As film fans, we claim we want more original content in our theatres. I cannot think of a more ambitious, elaborate, bolder, balmy or ballsy picture than mother! released this century – and for it to be backed by a major Hollywood studio, and have a $30 million production budget pumped into, we really couldn’t have asked for more.

What mother! flopping could/will lead to, though, is studios pulling the plug on the number of original, creative and innovative ideas they take a gander on. It’s already a tiny percentage of major releases and another disappointment, while its down could mean the whole system and idea of fresh content is irreparable; simply not worth the risk. Why back the intense fever dream of an artistic creator when you can release another superhero film, video game adaptation or family-friendly animation and earn bang for your buck, quickly and rather painlessly? Why take the challenge to create off-kilter art when the safer option is more financially proven and viable?

Paramount, bless their hearts, have come out to defend their decision to make and release such an audacious film. Megan Colligan, worldwide president of marketing and distribution for the studio, told The Hollywood Reporter, “(mother! is) a movie that was intended to be bold (…) We don’t want all movies to be safe”. The panache and dedication is clear and I absolutely love them for it – but how long can that mindset withhold? They simply cannot afford to make films on this scale that do not reap financial reward, and as admirable as it is for them to come out in defense of its performance, they will eventually hit a wall.

mother! failed because general audiences prefer something more conventional. They like something built to a mould, with a recognisable structure and clear ideas contained within the auditorium. In particular, with horror, they want something they can be thrilled by, but turn their brains off for in the process. That’s fine. We do need that. Cinema excels at providing a safe space for escapism, and horror (especially) does a sturdy job at providing that. But we need the balance between conventional and unconventional, traditional and modern, to give us the luxury of choice and options.

Now more than ever – as artistic subjects and lifestyles and industries come under fire – we need a platform and area in cinema where people are allowed to experiment; be artistic; be expressive in their creations; challenge what is typical and expected. We yearn for new ideas, originality, refreshing approaches and something outside the onslaught of yes-sir-no-sir blockbusters, barrel-scrapping remakes and box-ticking Oscar bait – but when they come, we kick them down, run a mile and/or ignore them completely. mother! breaks every rule in the book and suffered because of its boldness.

Help save mother!

I understand that mother! isn’t for everyone and it shouldn’t be a litmus test for every new original film – but that’s how the studios will see it as they twiddle their thumbs with a stack of cash by their side, ready to fund the next big moneymaker.

Aronofsky’s film features some of the most disturbing scenes ever to (dis)grace our screens and I more than understand, and to a point agree with, its haters – but the success of this film, its life and death, is so much bigger than one 121 minute feature-length. As with characters in mother!, the film is more of a metaphor for something bigger than itself, and studios will use this as a measuring stick to see whether these films should be green-lit in the future. At the moment, it is looking far from hopeful and healthy.

mother!’s failure means hesitancy for bold, innovative ideas moving forward. I’d take a guess and say that even some people that hated the film – or were unsure where they stood with it – at the very least appreciated the refreshing originality it provided audiences, something genuinely unpredictable and capricious. Those ideas will be non-existent if we don’t begin supporting them when we get the chance.

I want you to decide yourself what you think of mother! by going to see it as your local cineplex. It probably won’t be around for long. I won’t hate you for disliking it, although I’ll most certainly love you – and want to talk to you for hours on end – if you like it, or have a strong opinion on it either way. I’ll kinda hate you for deciding not to see it after the reviews have rolled in (but that’s a conversation for another day). I beg you to go and make up your mind – you’re supporting fresh visions in the process and it might mean more of them in the future, across a variety of genres with new, budding filmmakers coming into the fold.

There’s no easy way of saying this: mother! flopped at the multiplex this weekend, and whether we like it or not, film production studios across the world are studying its reception and success intently. Right now, it’s not looking good. We won’t get another film as bold and brave as mother! for years at this rate, and that is really rather distressing. Cinema deserves to be bursting with originality and, quite frankly, it’s not. mother! needs saving, not only for itself, but for the future of innovative filmmaking and cinematic risk-taking.

Did you like mother!? Which side of the fence are you on?

mother! is out in cinemas across the world. Go and see it. Please.