Failed Oscar Campaigns: "mother!" (2017)

Scene from mother!

As awards seasons pick up, so do the campaigns to make your film have the best chances at the Best Picture race. However, like a drunken stupor, sometimes these efforts come off as trying too hard and leave behind a trailer of ridiculous flamboyance. Join me on every other Saturday for a highlight of the failed campaigns that make this season as much about prestige as it does about train wrecks. Come for the Harvey Weinstein comments and stay for the history. It's going to be a fun time as I explore cinema's rich history of attempting to matter.

The Movie

mother! (2017)

Directed By: Darren Aronofsky

Written By: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris

Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery

Running Time: 121 minutes

Summary: A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.

The Movie

With the summer months gone, it's time to turn attention once again to the Oscar season. But how does one kick off a column like Failed Oscar Campaigns after another fascinating year that saw another diverse of Best Picture nominees as well as one of its most culturally diverse group of winners? The answer is simple. In order to start things off right, one has to pick a film that was symbolic of something greater. Last year, it was the will they/won't they charm of La La Land. It was a film that was met with criticism even as it remained a cultural touchstone, inspiring promposal videos and leading to one of the most iconic moments in Oscar ceremonies history. How exactly do you follow that up? The answer is to find a film that has resonated through the zeitgeist in another way, and few films did quite like director Darren Aronofsky's mother!.

The long and short of it is that mother! is, depending on your views, the most ambitious studio movie or the worst. With critics lavishing praise on the film for its experimental approach to horror that served as a metaphor for everything from environmentalism to religion to feminism to relationships, there was a backlash from audiences that was even more undeniable, and of which quite possibly put it into a more permanent pantheon. It was now a film so bad that it frustrated people, leaving them to ponder what star Jennifer Lawrence was thinking by taking on such an esoteric role. Even the sense that Aronofsky knew that this wouldn't go over well suggested just how much this art house-destined film felt like it existed to troll people with more commercial tastes.

It's the perfect film to kick off another season because it's unlikely that the film will go away anytime soon. With film festivals pushing Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria as this year's mother!, it does seem like it will be the misnomer for divisive movies, of which leave such a strong reaction. It's the kind of material that Oscar season was built for, and the idea that it lead to such rich conversation and public outrage showed that Aronofsky's desire to strike a nerve succeeded. However, as the column's title suggests, it is still a Failed Oscar Campaign. Even then, there's a lot that's fascinating about that brief time when it seemed like mother! was going to get Lawrence her fifth Oscar nomination. It was a different time, but also one that was frankly the stuff of legends now.

The Campaign

In a sense, the story started with the marketing campaign's main question: how do you sell something like mother! to mainstream audiences? This was a film being produced by Paramount Pictures on a $30 million budget. This was no small feat, even if Aronofsky was coming off of the Oscar-nominated Black Swan and the controversial Noah. For many, the promise of another Lawrence movie was even more striking thanks to her recent track record, most notably with director David O. Russell getting her three of her four Oscar nominations. More than the film itself, the film was being sold on the prestige, of two filmmakers teaming up on a project that promised to be so wild that Aronofsky would say "I'm sorry for what I'm about to do to you." at the start of a Toronto International Film Festival screening. It was shrouded in a secrecy that played to the film's benefit, though there was something less transparent in the public's eye.

It was during the filming of mother! that Aronofsky and Lawrence began dating. Because of this, the press was more interested in this new cinematic couple and what it could say for future collaborations. It was built into the press, making a curiosity as to what could possibly be held in this film that drove these two together. Before long, the actual marketing began to take off for the film, which included cryptic trailers of Lawrence walking down a hallway as audio snippets from the film played - mostly emphasizing the chaos that has yet to be seen. People reviewing the film were sent cakes shaped in the form of a bleeding heart, and critics who attended screenings often received poems that were likely meant to hold subliminal context clues for the theme of the movie. However, most striking, was the first posters for the film, which pulled from religious iconography and put things into a more insane context:

They were graphic and brutal, but also left a lot to be wondered about. When the film made its premiere at the 74th Annual Venice Film Festival, its future was for the first time predicted when the film received an almost equal mix of cheers and boos upon the film's conclusion. From the beginning, it was a divisive film. It would be during this time that Aronofsky would claim that this was the quickest that he wrote a film, claiming that Black Swan took a decade and Noah two decades, at only five days. It "poured out of" him and had a basis on a variety of themes, including famously some credit given to Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree." Beyond those film festivals, the film would remain in secrecy in terms of plot until it was finally released theatrically (itself being moved up from middle October to early September). Aronofsky would claim in an AMA Reddit that the film was "very very hard to spoil," and that alone was part of the marketing's genius. While some would later claim that it was misleading, the film's choice to not so much as give one coherent scene in the various trailers made it more of an event.

Part of the irony that came with mother!'s release is that the question "What is mother!?" was still not able to be properly answered. Those willing to dissect the film were split as to whether it was about the environment, religion, feminism, relationships, or something else entirely. Still, its sharp attack of the senses lead it to an infamous and rare F-rating on CinemaScore. Its projected weekend opening of $11 million didn't pan out, as it earned $7 million likely due to negative word of mouth. Aronofsky, publicly anyways, would suggest that those who disliked the film were right to feel that way. It was a punch of a movie, and it was meant to leave a powerful reaction. Of people defending the film was director Martin Scorsese, who wrote an article for the Hollywood Reporter detailing his affection for Aronofsky's use of direction.

In some ways, the film was metaphorical for the mother! couple as well. In the wake of the film bombing, things became strained for Aronofsky and Lawrence (and not just because she tore her diaphragm from hyperventilating). Lawrence apparently grew tired of Aronofsky's obsession with the film's failure critically and financially. He would read negative reviews to her and obsess over the details. When asked for comment, she said that:

“He comes back from the tour, and [the movie is] all he wants to talk about. I get it; it’s his baby. He wrote it; he conceived it; he directed it. I was doing double duty trying to be supportive partner while also being like, ‘Can I please, for the love of God, not think about mother! for one second?’” 

The cult of mother! had struck home, and it was proving to be the film that was constantly being discussed. Those who loved the film felt it was being misunderstood and that not supporting the film would lead to a decline in major studios taking chances on ambitious cinema. By the end of the year its reputation wasn't any clearer, with critics like Rex Reed (The Observer) calling it the "Worst movie of the year, maybe century" while others like Matt Patches (Thrillist) featured it in his Top 10 for the year. There was consideration for majors awards in spite of this but by the end, it wasn't looking likely. The film that wowed with its unpredictability was one of the most discussed movies of the Fall, but not in a way that anyone cared to award.

The Payoff

As one could predict from a track record like mother!'s, the odds of it doing too well at any awards ceremony was already difficult. In terms of major awards, it walked away empty handed. If allowed to expand outward, it became a bit more difficult to sparse how groups saw the film. The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Awards gave it the Donan Award for Campy Flick of the Year. However, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists proved to be more critical, giving it three nominations, including Actress Most in Need of a New Agent for Lawrence, and a Hall of Shame nomination for the entire cast. The film would also receive three Razzie nomination, including Worst Director (Aronofsky). Worst Actress (Lawrence), and Worst Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem). While there were other various awards in terms of horror-centric groups, the only place that it received most positive buzz was for the marketing, most notably from the Houston Critics Society Awards for Best Poster Design.

To some extent, the conflicts with mother! shined through to Paramount Studios as well. With many claiming that ambitious studio movies should be supported, what was ignored was that 2017 was a poor year for the studio. According to David Simms of The Atlantic, their big movies (Transformers: The Last Knight, Baywatch, Ghost in the Shell) were all bombs, meaning that it would be difficult for the studio to continue taking chances. The immediate impact of this was apparent with the international release of director Alex Garland's Annihilation, which was forced to be released on Netflix outside of the United States. To be fair, Annihilation was a more costly endeavor than mother!, but both resembled the studio taking chances in a time when it was too financially risky. In some ways, mother! bombing only hurt Annihilation's chances of being a theatrical release (though it's safe to say that the bigger tent pole movies are more to blame).

There's a lot to discuss with mother!, and it's become apparent that audiences have already placed it in the lexicon. With many calling this year's Suspiria a film that's likely to be divisive, many hail it as "This year's mother!" for better or worse. Still, it's one of those films that make the awards season a lot of fun, if just because of the many conversations it opens up. Was it a masterpiece (to editorialize, I say no)? Who's to say? The film will likely never land at a happy consensus, and it's been awhile since a film of any stature has been able to capture that reputation. Considering that Lawrence's next film, Red Sparrow, was also dark and challenging it's exciting to think that she's entering a more creative period of her career. Still, to think that a film this risky could exist and be the best and worst movie of a year is something to applaud. There's nothing quite like a disagreement, whether it's on plot details or quality. If nothing else, it showed the impact of good marketing and what it could take to stand out during a busy awards season.