DH: I thank you, and I appreciate your review as well. I think the horror movie for introverts angle works quite well. That's often a part of the paranoia horror I wrote about, and it always freaks me out pretty well. I guess it's also part of the home invasion thing, but this feels a little more intense for how isolated they are at the film's start and how innocuously the invasions begin. It's interesting that you see some of the devil, or at least demons, in this film. I don't find them anywhere. I've read people interpreting Mother as the fallen angel. I don't see where that goes, exactly, especially once the baby comes into the picture. I find it interesting how none of us particularly went for the environmental stuff, even when that's what Aronofsky and Lawrence explicitly state is the "point" of the movie. I think it works, even with the biblical stuff, because the metaphor is still about neglect and abuse that by all rights should be abhorrent to the religio(n)(ous) but is instead a central part of it. You can see the two brothers fighting as the first despoiling of the natural world. It's all there, it all works.
Oh, I think it is an easy step to take from the ending of my review to the environmental stuff. If humanity is spoiling Creation that could be taken to mean that we're litterally spoiling the Earth with our pollution. I didn't want to confine the message to that thought, because I didn't know about that authorial intent, and because I think it is more interesting if it is more open than that.
I don't know where the Lucifer-Lawrence identification can lead either, or rather, I don't see what you can say when you start going down that part. I think it works best if you see it as Aronofsky substituting the devil with a nurturing feminine archetype as the opposite of Yahweh, the narcissist, tyrannical male Creator. It's Aro. putting the Bible upside down.
I meant to reply more directly to your own review in proper terms but I haven't found the time yet. Will try to this weekend.
Question: You don't mention this in your review I think, what did you think of the constant use of close-ups?
(Also, I would love to read a piece linking this to Silence somehow.)
I guess my problem with your continued incredulity is that you seem to be ignoring the actual things that people are saying. Like, I get it, you think the film is vapid. But I don't see you tracking anything anybody is saying about the film except to dismiss it outright. It feels like you're standing in an apple orchard, looking for something to eat and unwilling to reach up and grab a snack.
What Junior said.
I would be incredulous if people starting universally praising Jurassic World but mother! is the easiest case of solving « Why are people talking about that movie? » ever. Even if you don't like it there's loads to dissect.
Now, where was that apple?