Review: mother! (2017)

* * *
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem

If you follow entertainment news sites, you've heard that mother! earned the rare "F" grade from CinemaScore. An F doesn't just mean that an audience disliked a movie, it means that the audience feels betrayed by the movie, like they've been sold a false bill of goods. On one hand, this turn of events is understandable because the marketing for mother! doesn't really give a clear idea of what it's going to be, but it being a major studio release one could be forgiven for assuming that it's going to be a little more... normal. On the other hand, it's a Darren Aronofsky movie. The closest he's ever come to "mainstream" is Black Swan and that's only mainstream insofar as it was a box office and Oscar success. Most of his movies are flat out designed to alienate. Granted, even knowing that going in, watching mother! can still feel like a bit of an endurance test. I don't think there's any way to actually discuss this movie without spoiling it a little (or a lot), so consider this a spoiler warning.

Review: Noah (2014)

* * 1/2
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Ray Winstone

Whatever else you can say about Darren Aronofsky, you can never accuse him of lacking in ambition. Whether he's telling an intimate, small-scale story about addicts hitting rock bottom and then finding new depths to sink to, or a science fiction epic spanning multiple time frames, he thinks big and follows his vision through to the end. Although he didn't seem like the most likely of contemporary directors to make a Biblical epic, after seeing Noah it's now apparent that Aronofsky was, in certain respects, the perfect director to tackle the story of Noah's ark. In other respects the story seems to have gotten away from him, with somewhat generic action/epic elements overwhelming the more unique and compelling elements of the film. My impression of the film was pretty evenly mixed - parts of it I found glorious, other parts I found considerably less so. It is at once a visionary work and a bloated miss.

Review: Black Swan (2010)

* * * *
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey

I've given it some thought and the conclusion that I've come to regarding Black Swan is that if someone had just given that girl a vibrator and twenty minutes in peace, none of that would have happened. Darren Aronofsky's latest is a film deeply entrenched in sexual repression/shame, its protagonist driven over the edge when tasked with connecting, on any level, to her sensuality. It makes for an intense, thrilling and absolutely excellent film.

Natalie Portman stars as Nina Sayers, twenty-something ballerina balanced precariously on the precipice of sanity. She's infantalized by her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey), herself a former dancer, who keeps her in a perpetual state of childhood in order to exert control over her and live vicariously through her. Nina dances for a company run by Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) and in which Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) has long reigned as prima ballerina. However, the company has been losing money, prompting Thomas to replace Beth and announce his plans for a daring reimagining of the Tchaikovsky classic Swan Lake. Though she's amongst the dancers he picks to audition for The Swan Queen, Thomas has his doubts about Nina's ability to portray The Black Swan half of the role, and while Nina does get the lead, she has a lot of work to do in order to prove herself.

Nina's struggle to connect with the sexually charged role is intensified by the arrival of a Lily (Mila Kunis), a new dancer whom Thomas praises for the passion of her dancing, even if she's not as technically proficient as Nina. Nina immediately feels threatened by Lily, whom she is convinced is trying to destroy and replace her. As the ballet's opening night approaches, Nina begins to drift further and further from reality, her anxieties expressed through bodily mutilation, violent fantasies (although how much is fantasy and how much is reality is up for debate), and paranoid outbursts.

To return to my original statement, if you haven't seen Black Swan yet, you might think that I was being facetious, but if you have seen the film, then you know just how true that statement is. This is not simply a story about a woman who isn't in touch with her sexuality, but about a woman who has been actively denied the opportunity or the space to mature sexually. Her identity in this respect is so underdeveloped that even Thomas - whose penchant for referring to his, ahem, protégés as "my little princess" would suggest that he isn't opposed to relationships in which the balance of power is significantly in his favor - thinks twice about getting involved with her.

Nina is the embodiment of the innocent white swan but rather than being drawn to a prince, she's alternately attracted to and repelled by the sexual energy of the Black Swan embodied by Lily. Given that the bodily horror aspect of the story has to do with the impossibility of denying one's true nature (the "black swan" part of Nina has been repressed, but in the end it overpowers her and she imagines that she's physically becoming the black swan), I think it's significant that the only positive (albeit only briefly positive and then ultimately destructive) sexual response Nina has is to Lily. I think a decent argument could be made for Black Swan as a story of coming out and the power of internalized homophobia, though I don't think I could properly articulate such an argument after just one viewing of the film.

The imagery of Black Swan can sometimes be lacking in subtlety but Aronofsky maintains such a high level of tension throughout the film that the force of the narrative just rolls right over you so that you aren't really bothered by the spoon fed symbolism. This is an incredibly intense and engrossing film and while I know that the whole is-it-real-or-is-it-hallucination thing will be off-putting to some, I think that Aronofsky makes it work each and every time. The fragility of Nina's mental state is established pretty much immediately but the film keeps building it up and building it up until finally getting to the point of her final descent into madness. The way this plays out is frightening and mesmerizing, leading to an ending that leaves you breathless.

At this point I don't think that there's anything I can add to the conversation about how great Portman's performance is or how brave; I can simply confirm that she's fantastic. The whole cast, really, is great from Hershey's clingy stage mother to Cassel's lecherous director to Kunis' Eve Harrington-esque understudy to Ryder's desperate fading star. The performances work together in a perfect harmony of chaos and while there is no doubt that Portman will receive an Oscar nomination for her work here, hopefully the supporting cast will receive some recognition as well.

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Review: The Wrestler (2008)

* * * 1/2
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood

When it comes to Darren Aronofsky, I’m a bad film buff. I’ve seen parts of Requiem For A Dream, all of which were so depressing that I haven’t been able to fortify myself to the point where I feel like I can sit through the whole thing, Pi is hard to find, and I just haven’t gotten around to seeing The Fountain, and so The Wrestler is my first experience with him as a filmmaker. From what I can tell, this is the most accessible of his films – certainly it’s his most acclaimed and it’s totally deserving of that acclaim.

Mickey Rourke stars as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a wrestler who enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1980s but has seen his fame – and way of life – diminish in the ensuing two decades. He’s still wrestling, playing in small venues for small pay and barely able to make ends meet. At the beginning of the film he returns home to his trailer to find himself locked out for failing to pay the rent and is forced to spend the night in his van. We get the feeling that this isn’t an unusual occurrence for him and this is one of several moments when the film shows him reduced and on the brink of despair, but somehow finding a way to endure. Things begin to look up for him when a promoter begins talking about organizing a rematch between Randy and his old rival The Ayatolla, which promises to restore him to some of his former glory. There are, however, complications.

Over the years, Randy’s commitment to his sport has taken an incredible toll on his body. There are parts of this film that I found very difficult to watch not only because of the violence, but because of the context. The wrestling ring, in which participants make use of barbed wire, a staple gun, and glass, amongst other things, is like a modern day Roman Coliseum and the more blood is shed, the happier and more entertained the audience is. It’s a really ugly commentary on the culture of entertainment and on the demands we put on entertainers in exchange for our attention.

His health problems force Randy to reconsider the rematch and the prospect of giving up wrestling forces him to confront the unpleasant things in his life, particularly his loneliness. He has a daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), with whom he has a difficult relationship stemming from the fact that he’s been absent for most of her life. It’s a fraught and compelling relationship but, somehow, not quite as compelling as the one Randy forms with Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), a stripper with whom he fancies he could have some kind of romance. She plays multiple roles in his life from shrink (their first scene together is as much a therapy session as it is a lap dance) to friend, but he’s oblivious to the reasons why they’ll never progress beyond the (relatively) platonic.

Regardless of whatever affection they may have for each other, the film makes it clear why a romantic relationship between them would never work. They’re similar in many ways, which the film isn’t shy about pointing out, framing them in the same way on a number of occasions. Both are, at least once, shot from behind, waiting to go through a curtain and take the stage to perform. Both are also shown isolated in a work situation, made vulnerable by the lack of fanfare to their presence. Randy gravitates naturally towards Cassidy because she’s a mirror – someone past prime but still trying to etch out a living. However, there’s an important difference between them that Randy doesn’t see, but that Cassidy probably does. For Cassidy, performance comes out of economic necessity and her stage persona is something she wants to leave behind. She doesn’t want to be Cassidy the stripper, she wants to be Pam, the person. Randy, on the other hand, wants to be the stage persona rather than settle for being Robin, the regular guy. He performs not because it pays the bills – his wrestling is actually detrimental to his economic stability as it leaves him with less time to devote to his day job – but because it allows him to be, even if only for a few minutes, that person that he aspires to be.

Rourke and Tomei play off of each other very well and each delivers a performance marked by subtlety and restraint. I wish the same could be said of Wood, who really ought to have dialled it back just a little bit. Her performance, particularly in her first scene, is just a bit overwrought and it’s difficult not to notice that when she’s sharing the screen with Rourke in scenes shot in such an intimate fashion. It’s not a bad performance, mind you, and the quiet scenes between Randy and Stephanie, when she has declared a kind of truce with him, are very good but in the scenes where emotions are heightened her performance gets very showy.

The Wrestler is shot in a very stripped down way that perfectly complements Randy and his life, which has become so devoid of frills. It’s a well-made film in every way and yet... something about it left me feeling cold. Admittedly, this may be the result of all the hype that’s been surrounding it for months and if I see it again later, I might find myself more emotionally engaged with it. Still, it’s a film that I appreciated a lot on an intellectual level.