Black Swan/The Wrestler/Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! is set for release in a month and a half (on September 15) — yet even with its impending release date, nobody really knows what the hell it’s about. The just released teaser trailer — which sees Jennifer Lawrence wandering around an idyllic/creepy house to fractured voiceover, then opens onto a rapid montage of varyingly nightmarish images — certainly isn’t revealing. (The extent to what can be gleaned: Jennifer Lawrence is indoors; things are ominous.)
Yet I found myself watching it a few times over to see if I could piece together anything resembling an idea of what’s going on, and you might find yourself doing the same. It certainly helps to know that, according to (the still very vague description in) Variety, the film concerns a couple whose life is disturbed by the arrival of strangers. Is Lawrence the strangers? Is Lawrence the couple? Is she Mother!? Of course, if this is anything like Black Swan, she could be all of the above! (That said, hopefully this isn’t anything like Black Swan.)
The voiceover in the trailer at least suggests that Lawrence is, indeed, one member of the couple, as we hear her asking, “what brings you here?” To which a voice that sounds like Ed Harris’ (which makes sense: he’s in the film) says, in a perhaps disingenuously innocuous manner, “They told me I could find a room here!” Then an unseen Javier Bardem seemingly chimes in — “He thought we were a bed and breakfast.” (Is Bardem the other member of the couple?) Then, as we see Lawrence continue to ethereally wander the house, her voiceover screams, “murderer,” and suddenly the screen flashes with images of a man on fire, a maimed bee, a bald head whose obscured face could be that of Ed Harris kissing Michelle Pfeiffer’s neck — and, get ready — the movie’s title!!
Not visible here are Kristen Wiig and Domnhall Gleeson, who’re also somewhere in the film. We’ll find out more on August 8, when the full trailer is set for release.
Meanwhile, here’s this: