Writing for '' The Guardian '' , Peter Bradshaw gave the film 5 stars , saying , " Darren Aronofsky 's toweringly outrageous film leaves no gob unsmacked . It is an event-movie detonation , a phantasmagorical horror and black-comic nightmare that jams the narcosis needle right into your abdomen . " Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of '' The A.V. Club '' gave the film a B , writing , " the filmmaking ranks as some of Aronofsky 's most skillful " . Ben Croll of '' IndieWire '' gave the film an A − , noting " Awash in both religious and contemporary political imagery , Darren Aronofsky 's allusive film opens itself to a number of allegorical readings , but it also works as a straight-ahead head rush . " In an essay for '' The Hollywood Reporter '' , Martin Scorsese said , " It was so tactile , so beautifully staged and acted — the subjective camera and the POV reverse angles , always in motion ... the sound design , which comes at the viewer from around corners and leads you deeper and deeper into the nightmare ... the unfolding of the story , which very gradually becomes more and more upsetting as the film goes forward . The horror , the dark comedy , the biblical elements , the cautionary fable — they 're all there , but they 're elements in the total experience , which engulfs the characters and the viewers along with them . Only a true , passionate filmmaker could have made this picture , which I 'm still experiencing weeks after I saw it . " Rex Reed gave the film zero stars in '' The New York Observer '' , and wrote that despite some good cinematography , " Nothing about '' Mother ! '' makes one lick of sense as Darren Aronofsky 's corny vision of madness turns more hilarious than scary . With so much crap around to clog the drain , I hesitate to label it the ' Worst movie of the year ' when ' Worst movie of the century ' fits it even better . " Reed further dismissed other critics ' positive reviews of the film as " equally pretentious " and " even nuttier than the film itself . ... they all insist '' Mother ! '' is a metaphor for something , although they are not quite sure what it is . " Similarly , '' The New Republic '' s Josephine Livingstone states that the film has " no human center to hold it down . " Anthony Lane in his '' New Yorker '' review wrote , " My patience was tested beyond repair , I am afraid , by the nimbus of nonsense . " In his '' The Wall Street Journal '' review , John Anderson said , " it achieves a level of excess that makes the whole enterprise increasingly cartoonish , rather than just awful . " '' Chicago Sun-Times '' Richard Roeper rated the film 2 out of 4 stars , writing that while he appreciated Lawrence 's performance , he questioned whether Aronofsky was mocking certain biblical passages featured in the film or presenting a commentary on an artistic process . Writing for '' The Washington Post '' , Anne Hornaday gave the film 2 stars , saying , " Even Lawrence 's magnetic powers ca n't keep '' Mother ! '' from going off the rails , which at first occurs cumulatively , then in a mad rush during the film 's outlandish climax . " Stephen Whitty of the '' Newark Star Ledger '' wrote , " one part early Roman Polanski , one part pseudo Harold Pinter , and two parts apology-from-a-driven-artist . And none of it adds up . The feeble idea behind '' Mother ! '' is n't strong enough to bear the weight of all the overwrought style he hangs on it . Unlike the mansion it 's set in , it 's a small , hammered-together thing , and it ca n't bear all this meaning and metaphor . " Chris Nashawaty of '' Entertainment Weekly '' said " Darren Aronofsky 's '' Mother ! '' is '' Rosemary 's Baby '' amped up into a fugue state of self-indulgent solipsism . He 's an artist . And he really wants you to know that he 's been thinking a lot about what that means . Unfortunately , his gaze is so deep into his own navel that it 's just exasperating . " David Edelstein of '' New York '' magazine shrugged off the film and any talk of its craft , writing , " Most of the dialogue and effects are clunky , repetitive , second rate . " The film 's nominations at the 38th Golden Raspberry Awards received backlash from audiences and critics , especially Lawrence 's nomination , whose performance was praised by critics
38th Golden Raspberry Awards
38th Golden Raspberry Awards
Mother!