By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
If you needed proof of the adage “Love is blind,” look no further than “mother!” in which Jennifer Lawrence stars in her boyfriend Darren Aronofsky’s macabre horror/melodrama that’s tinged with increasingly hysterical, pseudo-religious overtones.
Writer/director Aronofsky blends “Rosemary’s Baby” with “Requiem for a Dream,” making the cynical assertion that — for the artist — creative inspiration is more important than love or life itself.
Opening with the image of a huge Victorian country house burning, along with its female inhabitant (Lawrence), it relates the tortured tale of a nameless, archetypal couple (Lawrence, Javier Bardem).
He’s a famous, self-absorbed poet who craves adoration and idolatry. Serving as his self-sacrificing “inspiration,” she’s renovated and restored his idyllic old house, which burned down before they met. Like a radiant Earth Mother, she’s determined to “make a paradise” for him, even while self-medicating.
One evening, a mysterious stranger (Ed Harris) knocks at their door, explaining that he thought this was a B&B and he needs a room for the night. Rather than turn him away, the poet invites him to stay, much to the dismay of his timid, subservient, much younger wife.
It turns out their coughing, chain-smoking visitor is a doctor who is soon joined by his arrogant, predatory wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) and, later, by their two bickering sons (Domhnall & Brian Gleeson), one of whom kills the other.
Then an unwelcome horde of other parasitic intruders arrive, along with relentless violence and increasing destruction.
“Who are these people?” she inquires — with increasing panic. (Aronofsky positions almost every shot either as a close-up on Lawrence’s face, over her shoulder or from her point-of-view.)
Cryptic Biblical allusions abound as subtext in this abstract, metaphysical allegory with cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s flamboyantly bizarre visuals evoking the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and other intense, apocalyptic visions.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “mother!” is a grim, grotesque 2, turning into another instance of pretentious, self-indulgent torture-porn.
Nepotism has run rampant in Hollywood’s movie industry from the time of its inception, when dozens of relatives of moguls Carl Laemmle and Adolph Zukor were on the Universal and Paramount payrolls.
So writer/director Hallie Meyers-Shyer of “Home Again” has a prime Hollywood pedigree as daughter of producer/director/writer Nancy Meyers (“The Intern,” “It’s Complicated”) and producer/director/writer Charles Shyer (“Baby Boom,” “Father of the Bride”).
Ms. Shyer launches her career with this character-driven romantic comedy about Alice (Reese Witherspoon), recently separated from her workaholic Manhattan-based, music-producer husband (Martin Sheen) and relocated in Los Angeles, where her deceased Oscar-winning director/father left her a sprawling Spanish mansion.
On her 40th birthday, she’s picked up by 27 year-old Harry (Pico Alexander), an aspiring filmmaker who happens to be looking for a place to live — with his moviemaking partners (Nat Wolff, Jon Rudnitsky).
Flattered that the young men recognize her as a former cinema siren and charmed by their passion for films, Alice’s mother (Candice Bergen) suggests they bunk in the luxurious guest cottage. Convenient!
Plus, Alice’s adorably precocious young daughters (Lola Flanery, Eden Grace Redfield) adore the blandly amiable, energetic guys who soon become intricately involved in their lives.
Alice soon discovers that it’s nice to have millennials around the house, like having 24/7-computer tech service, live-in baby sitters and sex with someone who’s 13 years younger. In a silly subplot, Alice’s plan to launch a new career as an interior decorator is torpedoed by an obnoxious socialite (Lake Bell).
Although there are contrivances galore — and the less-than-compelling conflict could get lost in a cone of cotton candy — it’s a superficially amusing diversion.
On the Granger Gauge, “Home Again” is an implausibly sparkly 6, a fun chick-flick.
Derivative but diverting, the timely political thriller “American Assassin” centers on covert U.S. operatives zeroing in on terrorist factions and renegade mercenaries.
It begins on the Spanish island of Ibiza, where Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) proposes to his girlfriend, Katrina (Charlotte Vega). But their idyllic vacation ends in a bloodbath when she’s killed with other beachgoers by Muslim terrorists from a Libyan group under Adnan al-Mansur (Shahid Ahmad).
Determined to avenge Katrina’s murder by infiltrating Al-Mansur’s Tripoli-based cell, traumatized Rapp quits his graduate studies to buff up and learn marksmanship, martial arts and Arabic, which attracts attention from U.S. intelligence.
Although the CIA director (David Suchet) has his doubts about channeling Rapp’s unbridled thirst for revenge, the counterintelligence chief (Sanaa Lathan) views him as an ideal assassin. So Rapp is sent off to be trained by ex-Navy SEAL Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton) at a no-nonsense boot camp in Virginia.
When Rapp goes into the field to track down stolen weapons-grade plutonium, he’s accompanied by another trainee, Victor (Scott Adkins), and a Turkish agent, Annika (Shiva Negar), eventually facing a former American agent-turned-rogue mercenary (Taylor Kitsch) dubbed Ghost, who is brokering the plutonium-239 deal in Poland.
Based on a series of pulp novels by the late Vince Flynn, it’s adapted by — count ‘em — four different screenwriters and directed by Michael Cuesta (“Kill the Messenger”).
The cliché-riddled result is completely predictable, including a climactic showdown at sea, involving a speedboat, helicopter and the U.S. fleet.
On the Granger Gauge, “American Assassin” is a flat, formulaic 5, despite its fast-moving action sequences.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
