Here are some photos of Jennifer Lawrence and that cast of “mother!” at the Venice Film Festival. I’ve been writing it as “Mother!” but the “m” really is lowercase on purpose, apparently. Jennifer and her director lover Darren Aronofsky arrived in Venice a few days ago, along with castmates Javier Bardem (bueno) and Michelle Pfeiffer (guapa). First a note about the fashion – at the evening premiere, Jennifer wore this friggin’ Dior ballgown which I flat-out HATE. Hate, hate, hate. At this point, J-Law honoring her Dior contract just triggers my gag reflex, because she inevitably gets the most twee, princess-y looks from the house and IT’S NOT WORKING. My kaiserdom for J-Law in a clean, simple Armani. Michelle kept it simple in a Michael Kors, btw.
As for mother! (God that title is annoying), Variety did an in-depth review after screening the film in Venice – go here to read. Some SPOILERS (just skip this paragraph if you don’t want even mild spoilers)…I found the Variety take very interesting, because the reviewer came away with this idea: the central mystery of the horror story is never answered. That mystery? Why Javier Bardem’s character is so hateful to his lovely young wife, played by J-Law. The reviews coming out of Venice are pretty good-to-mixed in general – go here for THR’s review, and here for Vanity Fair’s review. My take, having just skimmed the reviews? This film is not for me. And I find it creepy that J-Law ended up dating a writer-director who “gave” her this part where she’s repeatedly punished for the crime of… renovating her house.
Here are some pics from the photocall earlier in the day. Jen wore a Giambattista Valli Resort 2018 dress which… should have been floor-length, then it would have been perfect. Whoever did her hair for the photocall did a bang-up job too.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Damn, Michelle Pfeiffer looks amazing.
She is stunning.
And just more beautiful with age
Yaaaaaaaassss!!! More Michelle Pfeiffer please!!
Love her. She is one of my all time favorites.
My first reaction too!! Don’t care about J Law’s dress; she’s invisible next to Michelle’s awesome power!!
Michelle!!! So elegant.
I actually like the ballgown, but then I’m a sucker for a big ballgown at occasions like this.
I also like the dress for the photocall but agree it would look better if it were floor length.
I actually quite like the length of the Giambattista Valli! It seems like it would be a good practical length for moving about without worrying so much about tripping.
I do too. I really love the Giambattsita Valli dress on Jennifer. Not the gown, though. I’m just not a fan of that ballgown look on her.
Yes, the length is great for what she’s doing (photocall) and completely en vogue too. I LOVE the ballgown, the shape works incredibly on her body and she’s giving total filmstar here.
I like the Dior – just not on her. I think it would look amazing on someone much younger. In fact I kind of want to see Maisie Williams in it.
I really like the dress. The sheer top and grungy grey colour with the florals and the princessy style is an interesting mix.
The reviews for mother! have got me excited. Aronofsky’s best films are always a bit polarising at first.
Yup, love it too! Gothic touches for a horror premiere.
In the photcall pictures she looks the best she has ever looked.
That dress is beautiful.
I second that. It’s now in my dream closet.
I’m sorry, was there someone standing next to my Javier?
/jk I loved her dress and Michelle looked amazing too (I always think of her in Ladyhawke and Married to the Mob, somehow!!)
Michelle looked amazing. Totally wins hands down. Can’t wait for her to be in the next Ant Man movie
Michelle Pfeiffer for the win – she looks incredible! That’s how you rock a red carpet. I just checked: she will turn 60 next year!!!
Bardem looks like he is wearing a hair-piece?
I’m usually no Lawrence fan look-wise as she often seems so bland. However, I love this dress on her as it makes her looks playful and fresh.
I actually think that Dior works on her, for a change.
Mother! is certainly going to be divisive, but it’s getting plenty of rave reviews – and Lawrence is getting glowing write-ups across the board.
I love everything about her photocall look (the dress and its lenght, the styling…) : she is stunning ! And I hate everything about her red carpet look
I’m okay with this dress. It’s boring but it’s not the worst Dior look I’ve seen her in. She’s been dressed better in other designers.
Apparently the movie was the only one booed so I don’t think this will be the smash everyone thought it would be. So far RT hasn’t added the negative reviews I’ve seen come out of Venice. Oddly they rated variety as fresh rating when it’s pretty negative which is odd.
Anyways this movie doesn’t interest me and it will be gone as quickly as it came.
I doubt it. Just look at the strength of the raves, which have come in from leading critics as well. This won’t go anywhere at the box office, but people are going to be arguing about this film for years – and it’s going to be remembered as an impressive addition to both Aronofsky’s and Lawrence’s CVs.
Yes having this movie on her resumé is great, critics think the movies she did were too safe and oscar baity. This movie is crazy and people, even when they don’t like it are passionate.
Eh I’ve seen the reviews and I’ve also seen the ones not included on RT yet. The biggest complaints are how underutilized the stars of this movie are, how thin the characterizations are and the fact that they rush most of he plot development in the last part of the movie.
When I said this won’t be a smash I meant it probably won’t get any awards like people thought. Anyways I’ll see it next week at a screener so I’ll see for myself. Maybe it will surprise me
This was never going to get any awards, given the subject matter of the film. It’s a deliberately provocative piece of high-art cinema – and from the initial reactions, plenty of people love it.
In any case, give me a film like this that tries to say something different and unique than middlebrow Oscar bait any day of the week. J-Law deserves plenty of praise for taking on this type of project.
@Nicole –
I agree.
I think this comment encapsulates how I feel about Aronofsky and his try hard pretensions.
“The Aronovsky School of Filmmaking.
It’s all flash, but little content to justify that flash.
Requiem for a Dream” is probably one of the most overrated films ever.
Everything about it is just flash & shock value, with a total disregard for the realities
of addiction.
Ironically, Aronovsky’s only good films are his smallest, made-on-a-cheap, low-budget features “Pi”, “Black Swan” and “The Wrestler”. Because there he couldn’t buy too much flash and had to think more about content, performances and realism.
When I saw the trailer for “Mother!” featuring obvious references to “Night of the Living Dead”, “Evil Dead” and “Rosemary’s Baby”, it showed the worst side of Aronovsky again: The film school student, who wants to impress and out-cite all the other fan-boys at film school. It’s postmodern pastiche 101.”
I don’t think I have ever watched a film of Aronovsky’s except for the dreadful Requiem… I’m intrigued, after watching the trailer for mother! as to, apart from the stupid title, what sets it apart from any other horror film.
However, Peter Bradshaw at the Guardian gave it a 5 starts with a standing ovation by way of a legnthy review.
This is why I don’t pay much attention to Rotten Tomatoes. They do this constantly, so certain films will get a leg up at the beginning, claiming a “fresh” rating when in fact many of the reviews were rotten.
As for “mother!”, I’m just meh about it so far. But my daughter loves a good horror flick, so I will likely go see it with her.
“Pretty good to mixed reviews?” Umm apparently it received the lowest critic’s score amongst the films seen in Venice so far. The ending is apparently disgusting.
Jennifer’s dress isn’t even tailored well, you can see the seams. Michelle just looks effortless and beautiful
The movie is currently at 93% fresh on rotten tomatoes. So…
Yeah something weird is happening with RT. There are a few reviews that sounded pretty “rotten” that were certified as “fresh”. Maybe Paramount is trying to build hype based off of a good RT score? Sorry to disappoint you
SJ, beliving in Rotten Tomatoes consipricary theories is never wise. Even though its usually comic book fanboys who do that.
Yes, take a look at Rotten Tomatoes. Glowing reviews from most of the leading US and UK critics – and see Twitter, where the high-art cinema crowd are raving about it. Sure, some critics aren’t going to like it. But it’s already a critical hit.
That’s what I said. Some of the reviews listed as fresh are pretty middle of the road or bad. Not sure how they aren’t rotten. But again there are bad reviews that haven’t made it to RT either
Her afternoon look is great, and her hair is perfect like this. The Dior evening ballgown is pretty but I disliked the makeup, too heavy on the eyes.
I liked all the looks, really. Even the dress that wasn’t floor length. Good GOD idk how they wear those heals. My feet would be screaming at me.
While I agree that JLaw looks best in clean, simple looks (Tom Ford, Armani, etc.), I think she pulls off the twee Dior dress. I especially love the Giambattista Valli dress. mother! sounds divisive but the critics who love it…really love it….and I think JLaw will get goodwill credit for taking a non-Oscar baity role in an off the wall film.
That said, the sexual politics sound troubling to say the least from the spoilers. I saw one critic quip that he most wants to know Rachel Weisz’s take on the film (although to be fair the critic liked it). I think Afronosky has made some excellent films, but I also think the roles he writes for women can at times be exploitative (particularly the ending of Requiem for a Dream…I understand that the characters are at their lowest point but it seemed more like for shock value than anything else). That said, the critics adore him so it’ll be interesting to see if there are any think pieces or whether it will be regulated to some twitter commentary.
YES! I read a few reviews and all my mysoginy alarm bells went off. However, no ones seems to refer to that, except for one of them who concludes that all of this (I suppose ill treatment) of a wife because she wants to “renovate the house”.
I have a bad feeling but then again I hated Requiem… with a passion. It’s rare to watch a film and feel dirty after it, but here we are.
Found it! From a review at Variety, the very end:
“But you could also say that “mother!” is so intent on putting an undeserving woman through the terrors of the damned that there’s a residue of misogyny to its design. Toss in a twist ending worthy of M. Night Shamyalan (a good or bad thing? Maybe both), and you’ve got a head-trip horror movie with something for everyone — except, perhaps, for those who want to emerge feeling more haunted than assaulted.”
Bizarre. But you could argue the same thing about “Elle” with Isabelle Huppert right?
Interesting…Having read a few reviews, I’ve got the impression that the film is actually an attack on self-serving male misogyny – and in particular the idea that women are there to serve male genius. There is of course a fine line between portraying misogyny and endorsing it. But from what I’ve read Aronofsky is definitely aiming for the former and not the latter.
@slowsnow
Interesting. Yeah, my alarm bells were definitely ringing when I read some of the spoilers. I liked Elle but there definitely was some misogynistic issues (although arguably Elle at least had a fully developed older female character with agency who wasn’t just a young, dewy wife reduced to being “mother.”)
@Embers C
It’s very possible that Aronofsky is aiming to criticize the male genius but I hesitate to give him the benefit of the doubt because of his earlier films.
@Div
With Elle I was playing the devil’s advocate. I actually did no think it was about a woman but about sex. How it is boring, enticing, mechanical, overrated, underrated, procreative. It is definitely about man/woman sex isn’t it?
The only thing that triggered my alarm bells was the son’s girlfriend – but I guess she was there so we did not have it as a women are victims and men are predators kind of thing. Because honestly, men are pricks in the film! That’s why I can’t see it as mysoginistic. THis is where @Embers C comment comes to play for me:
“There is of course a fine line between portraying misogyny and endorsing it”.
God I hated Requiem for a Dream. And Black Swan was a mess. But I love Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer, maybe I’ll go see this movie.
I love this dress on her! Finally, Dior gets it right. She actually looks so much better here than she does in the Dior print ads.
Michelle P is so lovely- just re-watched The Age of Innocence recently-she hasn’t aged a bit.
JLaw has been looking hot to me lately
It reminds me of of a combo of two awful things Goop has worn, that pink affair for her Oscar, and a droopy grey see-through one with no boob support.
That said, she looks fabulous in the other outfit
Exactly.
It’s a kinda less-goth, petal infused, version of these 2 prior Dior outfits, Goop and JLaw have worn.
https://au.be.yahoo.com/style/fashion/a/30971661/jennifer-lawrence-channels-gothic-gwyneth-paltrow-at-the-oscars/
That house needs new ideas.
RE: Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating, with a film like this there’s always a lot of what basically amounts to ‘it’s a great film, but I hated it’ reviews. It happens with these type of polarising, upsetting films. Reviewers praise the directing, the acting, the cinematography and everything else, but their distaste is obvious and thus the review slants negative. Aronofsky often gets these reviews, as do directors like Lars Von Trier and Michael Haneke.
The film itself is getting great reviews. The content of the film…a lot of people really don’t care for. But RT is about the quality of the film, not about whether it’s an enjoyable watch, so with these type of films where those two things don’t actually go together for many people, they prioritise the aspects of the review that talk about the actual filmmaking on show. A lot of the ‘negative’ reviews are resoundingly positive about the filmmaking, but they just didn’t like the story. So for RT’s purposes, they’re positive.
Actually, Aronofsky has gotten some criticism in regards to the plot, character development (or lack thereof) & his debatably overly-artsy, flashy directing style.
Like another commenter said, his smaller, low budget movies are all great but they lack character depth/development, so I am guessing this movie is no different.
Personally, the only thing that might keep me from seeing this is the revolting ending.
I really hope Michelle Pfeiffer wins her long overdue Oscar for this role. She’s getting a lot of buzz, per Awards Daily.
I love Jenn’s photocall dress. I don’t think I would have liked it if it was floor length.
(spoiler alert) I just read a theory about this movie. Basically the whole characters are parables of relationships between God, the mother earth and the humankind. him is God, mother is well, as the mother earth. First came Adam (Ed), then came Eve (Pfeiffer), then came the sons and generations after generations of humans being abominable and destructive. Murderers, rapers and the rests. Pretty brilliant.
J-Law usually fades into the background for me. She’s the most boring person on the red carpet at any event. I’m shocked, but I must admit that dress makes her stand out more than usual. She made me do a SLIGHT double take for the first time ever. Her face still makes me want to hit the snooze button, but the dress looks good on her. Michelle Pfiefer outshines her though, she’s still such a gorgeous woman.
She looks beat in the photocall…that hair is awful. She looks pretty at the premiere. Aronofsky is skeevy. Michelle is a goddess, although I don’t love love the dress.
I love it! She’s gorgeous and has that amazing figure.
I agree!
This is different from her normal style. Afronosky is trying to mold Jen into a old Hollywood starlet for this press tour. Not fart Jokes, no sexy clothing, he wants elegance. But he seems like the controlling type
Oh my God, that’s it. I could not understand why their relationship bothered me so much apart from the obvious – he is a self-centered, self-important artist who thinks his art is extra and she is a reality show lover. But in reality is that she dates director who gave the role of abused young inocent wife (how about all those rumours he was abusive to her on set) and she is known for being on good terms with pricks live David O Russell. It wouldn’t be surprising if their dynamic is very much determined by him being the adult and the artist with probably allows him to control or even abuse her.
On complitely unrelated note – the girlfriend just can’t dress
I was in Venice at the red carpet. JLaw and Bardem signed autographs for 20 minutes (the longest time of the whole festival), very nice and funny.
JLaw seems made of porcelain,very tall with a very thin waist, She didn’t even look human, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen