Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky has most definitely become the most hunted man in movie culture this last week. His controversial “mother!” has caused a volcanic stir in the mainstream by bewildering, provoking and flat-out infuriating movie audiences nationwide (and some media to boot) with its non-conventional narrative, shocking images and frustrating loop of a story.
That’s fine, adventurous moviegoers have mostly appreciated what Aronofsky went for in the film; it’s hard for any of us to really complain about a studio movie taking the kind of risks “mother!” does even if you think it subjectively fails. Critics haven’t wholly embraced “mother!” either as evidenced by its not great, but still fresh 67% Tomatometer score, and audiences have all but shunned the film (a tepid box-office debut of $7.6 million) giving it a rare, precedented by only 19 other films in history F grade on Cinemascore.
All of this has had the film’s studio Paramount scrambling to find a way to take the negative reaction and turn it into a positive ad campaign, as can be attested by the controversial poster they released which is fueling further “mother!” ire.
Even good ol’ Rex Reed — who dubbed it the “worst movie of the 21st century” in his review — is quoted in the poster. This is clear attempt by Paramount to capitalize on the media noise around the film and campaign it with a “we dare you to see it” kind of vibe, which isn’t a bad idea considering the conversational traction the film has gotten over the past week since its release. But given that it shows a physically abused Jennifer Lawrence in its attempts to provoke, the poster is being slammed as exploitive, “gross and tawdry” among many other scornful epithets.