Few films appear to have split the room as dramatically as Darren Aronofsky’s new movie, mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence. The film opened in cinemas last weekend, and earned – in the US – a very low cinemascore of F from audiences. That puts it in the company of movies such as Killing Them Softly, and the remake of Solaris. Not bad films, to be clear, more films that, if they don’t side with them, people tend to outright hate.
mother! got very good reviews on the whole, and it certainly has its advocates outside of movie critics too. But it struggled at the box office over the weekend, and has become something of a talking point.
We’ve not seen this happen before, either: the studio behind the movie – Paramount – has now issued a statement defending the feature. It’s come from worldwide president of marketing and distribution Megan Colligan. She said to IndieWire that “this movie is very audacious and brave”.
“You are talking about a director at the top of his game, and an actress at the top her game. They made a movie that was intended to be bold. Everyone wants original filmmaking, and everyone celebrates Netflix when they tell a story no one else wants to tell. This is our version. We don’t want all movies to be safe. And it’s okay if some people don’t like it”.
mother! continues to play in cinemas worldwide. For what it’s worth, we’d far rather Paramount put out a film of its ilk, than another Michael Bay Transformers sequel…