Mother!: The Complicated Plot And Its Horrifying Ending Explained

There are many films made about the concept of God and how he created Earth as well as the living beings that populate it. But none have managed to represent it as Darren Aronofsky does in 2017’s Mother! – both hauntingly beautiful and beyond heart-wrenching. He didn’t simply narrate the tale of the creation of all that is and how humans are ruthlessly pillaging the wonders bestowed upon them. Instead, Aronofsky spun a marvelous allegory to chronicle the cycle of creation and destruction. 

The story of Mother!

On its face, Mother! is the story of a couple living in an isolated area surrounded by lush greenery. The wife is working hard to renovate a house while her husband strives to finish his book. But this is where the film stops making sense if you keep taking it in at face value. Totally weird events unfold once we are introduced to the couple. Her devotion to the house and her husband is note worthy, while his attention is concentrated on making art.

As mentioned, the film is an allegory for the creation of Earth and those that dwell on the planet. So, the film begins with a woman titled “Mother” burning beyond recognition as a fire rages around her, followed by her husband, “Him,” putting a misshapen crystal on a stand after which the burned house and surroundings slowly recover and it becomes all new, along with a new Mother raising from the ashes. Before we move forward explaining the rest of the story, “Him” who is obsessively trying to write a book and is desperate for the adoration of his fans, is God, the creator of human beings and “mother’ is Mother Nature, while their dilapidated house which she continuously keeps renovating in hopes of making it perfect is Earth itself and the book he keeps writing is the Bible. 

In holy scriptures of all different faiths, it is mentioned that God created and destroyed the universe multiple times. The burning of Mother and Him “renovating” the house from scratch signifies just that. 

The first humans- Adam and Eve

While Mother is devoted to the house and her husband, Him is hungry for the love and adoration of his fan base instead. One day a man comes knocking on his door, claiming that he mistook it for a bed and breakfast. Him (let’s call him God to avoid confusion), let’s Man stay at their house despite Mother’s protests. This event marks the creation of Adam, the first human by God. 

But this man is ill and lonely. Mother finds him hunched over the toilet, vomiting while God tends to him. She notices a large open wound on his side (kind of close to his ribs–pretty on the nose). This signifies God taking Adam’s rib to create Eve, his companion as he was lonely. Soon, the man’s wife, the Woman arrives and immediately makes herself at home, messing up Mother’s immaculately decorated house, just like humans did (and continue to do) with Earth as they exploit its ample resources for their gain. Mother once again protests to her husband, but as long as the humans worship him, he is blind to her plight. 

The Garden of Eden and Cain vs Abel

Mother had caught the woman eyeing the crystal in God’s office, a place where even she doesn’t set foot without permission. So, the Woman is Eve, the office is the Garden of Eden, and the crystal here symbolizes the Forbidden Fruit. So, when Mother and God are occupied, the Man and Woman sneak into the office and accidentally break it, pushing God to fly into a rage and banish the couple from ever setting foot in his office. This is exactly how Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden forever after they ate the Forbidden Fruit. 

Shaken by the events, Mother tries to oust the couple but while Eve reserves her humbleness for Him, she is rude and ill-mannered while talking to Mother just like how we seek forgiveness and worship God but blatantly destroy Nature without any fear of repercussions.

The house starts to feel a bit crowded as Man and Woman’s two sons arrive and start fighting over the will according to which the elder son would be left without anything after his father dies. The fight escalates and the older son fatally wounds his brother, killing him, and leaves the house. It is implied that Man and Woman have lost both sons as now that the older son has killed his brother, he will reap the consequences of his action and will never be able to return. This signifies the feud between Cain and Abel, the first two sons of Adam and Eve and how Cain had to leave after treacherously murdering Abel. 

The first flood that wiped out Earth

Soon God allows mourners knowing Man and Woman to come in the house for their son’s funeral. While a few do mourn the death, many are engaged in their own activities in the house, creating chaos, and are carelessly using things without permission. A couple even ends up in Mother’s bedroom to make out only to be thrown out by her. Downstairs another couple repeatedly sits on a sink that hasn’t been braced despite Mother’s multiple requests and it ends up breaking, flooding the entire kitchen. Mother finally loses her patience and drives everyone out of the house. This symbolizes the global flood that wiped away the first human population on Earth. 

After everyone leaves, Mother, in her fit of anger, yells at God, pointing out that he is too caught up in being admired by others and he doesn’t even have time to get intimate with her. This pushes Him over the edge and they end up having sex. The next morning, Mother wakes up and knows that she is pregnant. For a while, everything is fine. She once again becomes God’s only muse and one dabe intimate with her, when she is well into her pregnancy, he finishes his book. While Mother, who is moved by his book, thinks she is the first person to read his book, he has sent a copy to his publisher and copies of his book are already sold out.

That night, Mother sets up a romantic evening for the two of them but God is busy outside with his fanatic followers. Soon people start coming inside the house and start looting it, some make up a cult-like formation, some try to harm Mother and the rare few who try to save her (signifying the environmentalists who strive to protect Nature) are overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who want to plunder her house. This is how humans are busy stealing from Nature without worrying about its well-being and how they are ready to destroy anything that stands in their path.

The birth of Jesus Christ

Soon Mother goes into labor and God manages to get her back to his study, where she gives birth to a son. Immediately God wants to take him outside, to the very humans who were pillaging his house and trying to murder his wife. When Mother refuses, he waits for days for her to fall asleep and then he takes him outside, only for the frenzied crowd to tear him apart and eat his flesh as he is a token of God’s creation. This symbolizes how God gave his son to the humans, the sacrifices of Christ, and the process of Eucharist, where Christ willingly gives himself to humans who then consume his blood and flesh.

Of course, during communion, his presence and the consumption of “blood and flesh” is merely symbolic (Catholics believe in transubstantiation which is notably less symbolic), compared to the horrifying scene that unfolds in Mother! Mother is devastated on seeing her son’s gruesome death and retaliates by stabbing a few of the onlookers, only for the crowd to turn on her and beat her senseless in their rage. God tries to save her but she reaches the end of her patience and runs to the basement, where she points out how God never loved her and constantly forgave those who harmed her. She then proceeds to set fire to herself and the house, killing everyone except God. The implication is that while God always forgives his creations, Nature isn’t that blindly merciful hence all the catastrophic natural disasters. 

As Mother dies, God proceeds to take her love i.e., her heart, which is the strange crystal we saw at the beginning of the film, and once again puts it on the stand. Instantly, the destruction is erased and a new Mother raises in the bed, which signifies the many times the universe was destroyed by natural disasters, only to be reinstated as God gives yet another chance to human beings in hopes that they won’t squander this one (spoiler for the sequel, we probably will).