Jennifer Lawrence’s new horror-thriller, Mother!, will send biting chills down your spine

Similar to Black Swan, Mother! gives us a peek at how paranoia is driving Lawrence’s character into total...

As the age-old saying goes, visitors, like fish, stink after three days. And currently, there is no better person than Jennifer Lawrence to vouch for this truism.

The full length trailer of J-Law’s present beau’s latest production, Mother! has just dropped and it’s fair to say that Lawrence is having a tough time dealing with some uninvited house guests.



Following 2014’s Noah, Darren Aronofsky – apart from getting serious with The Hunger Games star – had been working on this highly discreet project which is thought to be loosely inspired by Roman Polanski’s horror classic, Rosemary’s Baby.

Noah was a disaster of Biblical proportions, but with Mother!, Aronofsky is back doing what he does best – the psychological thriller.

If Black Swan saw the acclaimed filmmaker dig into the mind of Natalie Portman whose quest for perfection leads her into a vicious vortex of insanity, then Mother! takes a similar path. It opens up a window where we, along with the director, take a peek at how paranoia is driving Lawrence’s character into total derangement.

Mother! stars Javier Bardem as Lawrence’s better half and the duo appear to be living a happy and peaceful life until they decide to move into a decaying house that our female protagonist – with a good old restoration job – plans on making a paradise out of.



Everything seems to be going well for the love-struck couple till a stranger, Ed Harris, stops in for a visit. Michelle Pfeiffer, Harris’s on-screen wife, quickly follows suit and within no time, the house is full of unwelcomed visitors, including a flashlight wielding mob swarming their front yard. While all of this is enough to drive Lawrence crazy, her husband on the other hand – who wants to open his doors to new people and fresh ideas – clearly seems to be enjoying their company. Thus starts our female lead’s descent from sheer tranquillity into the pits of utter despair.



Throughout the trailer, there are various supernatural elements at play. From the blood-oozing walls to the renovated house being burnt away right before our eyes, everything sends a biting chill down your spine. A psychological horror-thriller is not something that the Academy looks too kindly on, but since it is Aronofsky that we are talking about, you can bet that there will be more than a couple of Oscar nominations coming Mother!’s way.



This clearly is Aronofsky’s home turf; a genre that he feels most comfortable in. And anyone who had the pleasure of watching his previous work such as Pi, Requiem for a dream, The Fountain and Black Swan would attest to this very fact.

Along with the power house quartet of Oscar-recognised Lawrence, Bardem, Harris and Pfeiffer, Aronofsky managed to rope in the talents of Emmy Award nominated Kristen Wiig and Domhnall Gleeson. However, he had to do without long-time collaborator and music genius, Clint Mansell, who composed the scores for his previous six movies.



Mother! is selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 74^th Venice International Film Festival, and adds to its festival run by appearing in the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Its official release is September 15, 2017, and I for one cannot wait.