The Press Box - ‘The Big Picture’ — Dissecting 'Mother!,' the Most Controversial Movie of the Year (Ep. 354)

Episode Date: September 22, 2017

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, and K. Austin Collins attempt to wrap their heads around Darren Aronofsky’s controversial new film, ‘Mother!’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, just want to give a quick spoiler alert for this podcast. We're going to be talking about quite a few of the details of the movie Mother. So if you haven't seen it or don't want to know them, please tune out now. Hello, my name is Sean Fennessey. I'm the editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and here's the big picture. On the eighth day, we podcast. Today we're going to be talking about Mother, which is the new film from Darren Aronofsky. You may know Aronofsky's films.

He's made Black Swan, Rec Room for a Dream, The Wrestler. He's a very controversial, fascinating, visceral filmmaker. Mother might be his most controversial movie yet. To talk about the Mother saga, I'm joined today by culture editor Amanda Dobbins. Hi, Amanda. Hi, Sean. And staff writer at the ringer Cameron Collins, Cam. Hi, Sean.

You guys ready to cry and weep and explain why this movie is so important and not important? I don't think the crying part is going to happen for me personally, but yes, I'm ready. I'm ready to be Michelle Pfeiffer ruining everything for everyone. So let's explain to listeners what Mother is, because it's this interesting thing that is, A controversy that is largely unseen. It's a movie that only $7.5 million worth of people saw this weekend, even though it opened in 2,200 theaters across the country. Amanda, how would you describe mother to listeners? Am I doing the honest version or the version that the studio and Darren Aronofsky presented to the world?

Let's go studio first and then we'll explore what it really means. Right, because this is the controversy is that not a lot of information, or it's one of the controversies, that not a lot of information about the film was given to people. What we knew is that it had some goofy punctuation in the title and that it starred Jennifer Lawrence. And there were enough kind of teasers, trailers to hint that it was going to be weird and a little horror adjacent. And also if you know Darren Aronofsky's work at all,

you know that it's going to be a little weird and horror adjacent. But that was it, pretty much. So Mother is essentially the story of a woman who has only identified as mother. She lives in a home. The film takes place entirely inside this home. She is married to Javier Bardem, who is known as him. They have visitors to their home, including Ed Harris and the aforementioned Michelle Pfeiffer. They are only identified as the man and the woman. And then more people start visiting their house. Javier Bardem's character is an artist-creator of some kind. Jennifer Lawrence's character is essentially a stay-at-home wife, a homemaker, a person that is helping to refinish this home that has been burned in a fire. And then madness ensues. Describe for me both of you guys as the movie starts to take shape and we start to sense that there is something more metaphorical and allegorical in play what your reactions were individually. Cam will start with you. I knew some weird shit was actually going to be up as soon as the movie starts with the image of a woman on flame, like being burned alive and crying.

I kind of figured that Rosemary's baby was maybe wrong. And I sensed that we were going to do something with, I mean, the Jennifer Lerner, character is a very, very, very, very doting artist wife slash muse figure. So I knew that the movie was either going to not be self-aware or be self-aware. And I mostly spent the first 40 minutes wondering which would be worse. And I'm not actually sure where I land on that, really. That's an important part of this. I think a lot of people still don't totally know whether they hate this movie or not. I think a lot of traditional filmgoers, came out with a very, very angry feeling.

Yeah. And the movie notably received an F cinema score, which is a service that essentially tracks people's reactions to movies after the first night of screenings. And it's typically more indicative, I would say, of the way a film is marketed rather than the actual contents of the movie. Because it's really larded with expectation, and it's not about quality per se. However, there is this long history of movies that are pitched one way and then are delivered in another way.

You know, the box, for example, was a, like, mystery horror thriller that people thought was going to be a little bit more conventional than it ultimately was. Amanda, what about you when you first saw where the movie was moving to, what direction it was taking? What was your response? Cam points out that it's pretty obvious from the first shot. And then the opening scene after the shot of a woman on flames is Javier Bardem taking this sort of mystical crystal that we can talk about what it symbolizes later on. But he puts it in its little holder,

and then the world around him turns from ash to life. And Jennifer Lawrence is turned from ash life and she wakes up. So you're aware pretty quickly that there is something else going on here. There is a mystical, if that's the right word element to this. And then, so I was a little confused by that and also a little wary. It should be also noted that I went to see this film on Sunday. And by the time I saw it on Sunday of opening weekend, I went in with some expectations of my own of. The takes had been roiling by that. Yes, exactly. I was aware that I was walking into the Thunderdome a little. So I was, and again, also this is a movie by Darren Aronofsky, so I had some personal expectations as well. But I think it is pretty clear. And then there

is just such a strange and intentional tone throughout even the first 40 minutes. Jennifer Lawrence is very uncharacterously subdued. Yeah. Even beyond a stranger shows up and in the house, which is a pretty classic uh-oh sentiment, there's just weirdness in the way that the film is made. And I suppose that's a testament to the filmmaking that you know that something is off. And there's a very strong clue of there is something weird going on here. there is some metaphor at work, basically, flashing lights.

It's indicated clearly that she and the house are both this sort of like living symbiotic organism and that she has the ability to sense how alive or not alive the home is. Right. And from that moment, essentially, from when we see that, from when we see that crystal that Javier Bartem's character is holding, you know, you sense that there's something mystical, but I'm not sure that I necessarily saw it as becoming biblical. And I think when Michelle Fifer's character and Ed Harris's character is a rioting, on the scene, it becomes fairly evident that they are stand-ins for Adam and Eve, and when

their two sons arrive, it becomes fairly evident. I was going to say the signs. You know, were the indication for me. Yeah. Because they could be weirdos. Right. When I knew it was like the Canaan Abel thing, I kind of was like, oh, all right. Right.

So when the two brothers arrive on the scene in the house, it becomes evident within a minute that they're recreating the Cane and Abel story from the Old Testament. You know, prior to that, I would say that it was very evident to me the moment we see Ed Harris's character vomiting after a long night of drinking with Javier Bardam. And Javier Bardam's character slides his hand down the back of Ed Harris because we see that he has, he's bleeding from his back because he's removed his rib to create. Oh, yeah. I think that as soon as the barfing happened, I was like, oh, I'm grossed out.

So if you see the wound there and then magically the next morning, Michelle Pfeiffer's character arrives on the scene. Essentially, Eve has been birthed. I do think it's fun to kind of keep unlocking some of these choices that he's making. Some of them are really on the nose and some of them are a little bit more subtle. And that's kind of... What's a subtle one? Well, I think that the rib was not, was fairly subtle. Apparently, yeah.

You know, I'll tell you what's somewhat confounding to me is there's a moment shortly thereafter where Jennifer Lawrence's character who is experiencing these sort of like, not quite seizures, but these like dizzy spells. And she finds herself going to the bathroom quite often and she takes a tincture and she needs to sort of like clear her head. and at one point she sees that there's something in the toilet and it appears to be organic and maybe even an organ of some kind but we don't know and it's sort of like twitches and explodes into a pool of blood

and then she flushes it down the toilet I've seen people say oh well that's the rib that's like the remnant of the rib exploding but I don't know it could be something else I couldn't really wrap my mind around what that was is that just a tool that Aronovsky is using to make us feel uncomfortable as you said Amanda, a lot of his movies toe the line between this sort of like physical thriller slash horror movie.

But, you know, there's no resolution in a small moment like that. We never actually find out what that meant. And I think the movie has this series of reaches for meaning in visual gesture. But there's no resolution, right? Yeah, I think reaches for meaning is perhaps the key phrasing there. If you get to the central metaphor, which is that she is, the earth or mother earth. I took sort of all of the weird, the house breaking down and there's a blood spot in a plank of wood that keeps popping up. And it's not, I didn't, if there's a biblical

so I'll give you my reading on that one. You want to hear my interpretation. Yeah, let's go. So Kane slew Abel and in the space where he's murdered, we see that there is a blood stain and Jennifer Lawrence is working very diligently to kind of remove the blood stain. And she cleans it off and then she drops a carpet over it and then the blood reappears. and we see the blood almost like bleeding through the ground into the basement. And my interpretation of that is that that is like a remnant of original sin. It's like the first murder that, and we can't, humanity can't shake that sin that has been committed. And so it persists through the house and it like bleeds through the house and almost like destroys it the way that acid would burn through the piping in someone's home.

Is that exactly what Aronovsky intended? I have no idea. Right. I buy that. I think that makes sense. And I kind of took all of the weird, the gross out things that you can't trace to be some sort of humans ruining the Earth in various ways. I took it very literally to mean that humans have ruined planet Earth and they can't coexist and we're all to blame. And Darren Aronofsky hates us.

Kim, were you in the moment when you were watching the movie, were you looking for clear parallels and trying to resolve those metaphors? I generally try not to because, A, because the same thing. Despite having, because of Aeronovsky, actually, circa Noah, I've had the Holy Bible app on my iPad for moments like this, for movies like this. Because there's a moment where it was like, it was like Noah and it was the common brother's a serious man where I was like, I feel like if I knew more about like, you know, the religious texts here and if I hadn't like, you know, flaked out of Bible study when I was a kid, I would be unsure footing here. So I always try to be prepared. But I was also just so interested, to be honest, in the very deliberate emphasis on the selfish artist and the selfless, like, frankly, ingratiatingly selfless muse thing that that also complicated all the biblical stuff for me. Explain that a little bit because it's a parallel metaphor that is happening in the movie that has almost nothing to do with either the ecological or the biblical sentiments that he seems to be trying to get across. Right. I mean, just the, I mean, Jennifer Lawrence is really into this house. And she, you know, when Ed Harris and Michelle Fiverr show up, she's cleaning up after everyone, she's playing very much the hostess, she's cleaning while he's writing, she's asking him about his writing. Like, things that are very familiar tropes to me in terms of like artists' wife, artist muse relationships. The thing I was uncertain about was whether that was a critique that was happening there or what. I mean, but it was definitely very, very.

obvious. But when you throw something like that in there, then it's sort of like, okay, Mother is Mother Earth, Javier Bardem is, like, is he God to people? Essentially God, yes. But he's also like, if we just strip the God part away and make him a creator and we think about artist's creators, then it's like, you know, I kind of need both of these things. I can't just have it be an environmental allegory and it can't just be an artist's allegory. I kind of need them to be working together because on either end of those things aren't as interesting to me as the implication of artists thinking that they're God. Let's do a deep reading of some of that, Amanda.

What do you think he's referring to when he identifies the relationship between a tortured male artist and the woman who is quote unquote serving him? It might be about Darren Aronovsky. And I just, you know, Cam would like to reconcile the two storylines. And I don't know whether you guys have read any interviews of Darren Aronovsky, but he is a devoted environmentalist. Yes, he is. And I believe this is in the Tad Friend profile and the New Yorker will come back to.

A classic. One of the articles I read before this podcast, he was talking about how all of the work that he does that's not film is about the environment. So the way that the two storylines are reconciled or in the fact that Darren Aronofsky made a movie about his internal struggle. That's what it is. Yeah. And that's valid or not valid.

But I think, I think Cam is right that there is both the creativity. struggle and trying to work in a comment about the environment. And that is very hard to pull together. And I'm sure Darren Aronowski has been feeling that it's hard to exist in the world and bring all those things together. And that's why he wrote this movie about it. Yeah, it's interesting. I certainly sensed by the end of the movie, I walked out thinking, she's Mother Earth.

I got that part. And I definitely walked out thinking, this is also about the Bible. And my Roman Catholic upbringing was sort of like pinging the references every time. It was like the sight of a frog indicated the plagues and a breaking sink indicated the flood and Noah's Ark. It's kind of a parlor game that he's playing a little bit. But it does feel like centrally, ultimately, the thing that he is most committed to. And that sort of like resolves the movie in many ways is the relationship between Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence, what he puts her through and what she has to sacrifice in this movie.

which, you know, we don't have to go too far into what happens in the film. But, you know, it's like literally a war of attrition. And then ultimately there's rebirth. And Javier Bardem gets to move on as he always does, and no other character gets to live in the same way. And there's something very notable about the writer-director of a movie concluding his film that way, right? Yes. Can I just say that Harvey Bardem is a poet, having dated a poet before,

Besides the big house part, it resonated with you? If it's a movie about a poet, then I get it. Then there's like no mystery. Yeah, just to echo Cam's thought, if it's a movie about a late 30, early something, 40-something dude who is struggling to be an artist. I also get it.

Then it's like, okay, so this is what this movie's about. Cam and I have both been single in Brooklyn. No, it's totally, yeah, I mean, but like, I think that's why I, like, need that to be a part of the movie, that it can't just be an allegory, because that's, because it's a while before Cain and Abel show up. And it's a while, at least for me, before I realize that Michelle Pfeiffer is Eve, mostly what you have for the first 40 minutes if you're not picking up on those things is, wow, this is a really shitty relationship where she's just spackling. And it's like, it's like his childhood home, right? And she's like doing this for him and it's very selfless. And it's Jennifer Lawrence really, really, really doing that in the way that I've never seen her be the doting wife or something. Yeah, it's unusual.

It's an unusual thing for her. I found it to be a slightly strange fit. You know, I have a theory about Jennifer Lawrence, which is that she's been miscast in every film she's ever been in except for Winter's Bone. I think you could make the case that Katness Everdean is kind of close to some of her skills, but that she is most of the most of her. effective when there's something that is very grounded about her. And the Onger Games are obviously not grounded because they're YAA dystopia. This is a hard left turn for a very successful actress. And, you know, certainly she's seen very taken with the filmmaker and very taken with the set.

She specifically in interviews has not been shy about talking about the allegory. She's wanted to get in front of that because I think there are a lot of things that happen in the movie that are very upsetting to her character. And I think she suspected. She identified that there might be some conversation about when a woman is beaten or raped or, like, just abused for two hours, kind of what that communicates to the world. And she very clearly in the press has said what Darren and I wanted to do was to tell a story that looked at the history of the world and where the world is going and was kind of not afraid to get haughty in a way that a lot of actors and actresses are often very reluctant to do. unless they date Harvard Altours. Well, that could be a factor. I did think there was an interview in the New York Times,

and it came out after the film, so they were able to both Aronovsky and Jennifer Lawrence talk about it with more specificity. And I thought it was interesting in this joint interview. They disagreed over how much should be presented ahead of time. And Jennifer Lawrence was very much like, for the reasons that you were just saying, and let's make it clear that it's an allegory.

Let's make sure that everyone can understand everything that's going on. And Darren Aronovsky did not want to do that because he is the director and this is the film that it is. He won. So I'm curious about that. So this is all sort of related to the success or failure of the movie sort of as a box office proposition and also as a piece of art. Would it have been better for this movie to have been completely straightforward about just sort of generally how insane it is and how, you know, it is imaginative and creative. It's just sort of like off the rails within 30 minutes.

Would people have been more accepting? Would this podcast not be happening if we had known more about it ahead of time? Would, it depends on what the messaging was. Like, would a movie make money for saying, I'm an environmental allegory? I don't know. Probably not. No. You know, I mean, it would have to be, because I also think that, like, Noah is about the environment for him.

would have to be a blockbuster. It would have to be, I mean, Noah you can sell so many ways. It is the story of Noah's Ark. It is also a story about the environment. It is also Aronovsky trying to combine biblical tale with a story of evolution. But it is also a Russell Crow movie. It has block people rocks who are supposedly archangels, but who are also like fighting war. So it's like you can sell that anyway. You can sell it as a Christian movie, I guess, but you can also sell it as a blockbuster. But this, it's like, I can't think. I can't of any way of spinning this that's not ultimately still going to be Aeronovsky on his bullshit if that's what you think.

It's possible, although I will say that I could see a trailer of this movie that shows flashes of the scene that is meant to, you know, replicate like a Black Lives Matter protest or the scene that's meant to replicate like war criminals, murdering, hostages. Like, there are images that you could kind of compel people to show the extremism of the movie, but also the sort of like visceral tension that is happening throughout the last 45 minutes that would tell people this is not just a weird movie about Jennifer Lawrence being trapped in a house because that's kind of all you really get. Yeah.

I will say, Sean, your reaction coming out of the movie, and I think you saw it on Saturday, so it was before it was heating up, but the kind of controversy that we're now addressing hadn't really started. Classic Saturday morning screening for me, which is the truth of my sad life. But you came out and you said no one told me how. saying this was. Everyone is underestimating that times a thousand. And

I feel like even in the conversation, divisive is the word that has been used. But divisive does not really capture kind of just the bonkers, the experience. And I do think that there, I think it might have helped if there was a way to just communicate

this is out of control. This is just 211. This is really wild. Because some people actually like that. I mean, loves that. That's why I got the movie for Cam, I think. And there are a lot of people like Cam. Which is like, yes, let's go. Let's see someone wilding out. So that's like an entree into a good part of this conversation, which is I'm not sure that I aesthetically and intellectually really identify with this movie or even like it. I'm frankly a little undecided about it. But

I read your piece and I read Tony Scott's piece in The Times and I read Rex Reed's piece. Those were the three reviews I read immediately after I saw the movie. Part of the reason I didn't know how crazy it was is because I just didn't read about it. I made an effort to restrict detail. And I think a lot of critics made some interesting choices about what they revealed and didn't reveal. I thought you did a really nice job camp. But there is something fundamental about the way that movies are marketed and communicated to audiences now that even if you don't read any criticism, you've got a pretty good handle on where something's going. Sure. And that was not the case here, like at all. Not at all. They did not show you one-tenth of the tone and the approach of the movie was going to take.

And that's interesting, I guess. It's notable that the movie's made for only $30 million, which took Paramount Pictures as a pittance and it stars Jennifer Lawrence. So on Saturday morning, I was quite confused as to how it even existed in the world. Sure. I've come to understand over a couple of days that getting J-Law attached to a movie in and of itself kind of buys you $20 million. Plus, Darrenowski has now made two really successful movies. I think Noah has not necessarily aged well in a lot of people's minds, but Black Swan is like an ins, that's a, That's a crazy ballet thriller that made $300 million.

That's an achievement in the 21st century. So I guess it's kind of interesting that it exists to me and that it was released by a major studio. I'm not as shocked by it as I once was. But I don't know. Were you guys expecting something on a grander scale, on a smaller scale based on what was communicated? Well, first of all, I'm jealous of everyone who saw, I started a critic screening while on the whole critics are assholes. Like, we're very polite when it comes to watching a movie. So no one's going to walk out.

I'm jealous of everyone who, because I think that's part of the experience of this in the way that like you go to like a certain movie theater on a certain day seeing a horror film and you know like you know what the participation is going to be or a comedy like when I saw a girl's trip. Like everyone laughing is a part of the experience of that movie. But I'm jealous of everyone and I think I would even be willing to see it again just to experience the energy in the room when things really hit the fan in that movie because I think I missed something by not being able to take the pulse of the people around me

because critics are always, if things get bad or weird, critics are always like, hmm, which is not the way that people I think should be reacting to, you know, we'd set the spoiler warning already, right? Yes, you're clear. Yeah, so like, like with the baby, with the crowd surfing baby. There's a baby that is born in the film and then something quite upsetting happens to the baby. Right. Sure. In the critics' screening, there was no reaction, really, that I recall.

And I think I wanted to be around to people when that happened. I want to know what people left. What was the reaction in your screening? It's an interesting question. So, Jen Yamato at the L.A. Times wrote a piece yesterday about this movie and about kind of the general reaction to it. And she included a line that is almost exactly the same as something that I heard in the theater. She said she heard it in the ladies' room after the screening when she saw it over the weekend. And I heard it in the theater as soon as the movie ended, which is that is the worst.

movie I have ever seen in my life. Right. Someone said that out loud at the end of the movie. And, you know, I saw it at the Hollywood Arklight, which is famously a very artist-friendly viewing environment. Typically people, one, they typically work in the industry. Two, there's a lot of applause at the end of movies here in Hollywood. And this was the opposite of that. This really made people feel something. It was not just visceral, but like emotional. And they were, as opposed to tears or joy, they were like, man, fuck this, which is, that's a choice. Yeah.

And I think in some ways he probably feels like he succeeded if he knows he's getting that kind of a reaction. What was your reaction, Amanda? I have the most boring reaction because I just found it to be kind of trite and I haven't thought about it since. And I think... That's amazing. That's why you're here today. Yeah. And, you know, I think this was from the Vulture interview that he did afterwards.

And Darren Arnovsky said he wrote this script in five days. and I'm like, I can't believe it took you five. So, well, you know, it really is copy and paste from the Bible with some, oh, but I could also work in the environment because that matters to me in. And I don't think he certainly succeeded in creating a mood. And it really does become batch it at the end in a way that I was not expecting. I will say the reaction in my screening at the Arklight on Sunday was silence, except for two months. except for my husband who was cracking up, which echoes the, like, he was just openly laughing.

He was enjoying it. That mirrors at Tony Scott's review said, this is a hoot. This is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. I was pretty funny, too. There is an interpretation there that totally makes sense. And I think that that was probably the only time that I thought that Darren Aronofsky was aware of what he was making. And I wouldn't quite say in on the joke. but is intending to push buttons, is trying to get a reaction, which I respect on some level.

I always like a certain amount of public assholery. This is now my particular brand of it. You know, I do think it's a weird time to try to play a trick on everyone who's buying a ticket to a movie. It's a good point. It's a very good point. Let's use that as a way into a conversation about sort of, you know, Jennifer Lawrence and Aaron where their careers go from here and also sort of what's the legacy of a movie like this that will not ultimately have a very wide audience but is already burned in the brains of those

who have seen it as like a freak out movie which has a very specific type. I wrote in a piece this week about the movie that I think Aronovsky is just going to be fine kind of regardless of what happens here because he's a privileged person in an industry in which he's had success. He got to make this in the first place. So that tells us a lot. Jennifer Lawrence, I think, has had kind of a stormy, couple of years in terms of the choices she's made? Where do you guys think she's going to go from here?

Will she now lean into something safe, having had this experience? I think that she is also in many ways in a privileged position and can do a lot of things. And I think this movie for her is just like, I'm going to do something weird. In the way that like Natalie Portman and Black Swan, yeah, she'd done some weird stuff, but not like psychodrama ballet weird, not like Aronovsky weird. Same thing for Jennifer Connolly and like Requeen for a Dream, right? Like I think actresses in particular get the weirder, maybe more fucked up roles in his, in his films. You've identified a trend.

Yeah. Well, I'm just going to go ahead and point out that she started dating Darren Aronofsky as a result of this experience, which. Quite a choice. Is not the reaction I would have had. And I think Cam has certainly has isolated something, which is she was clearly. swept up in this experience. She talks a lot about how traumatic it was for her. And I think she kind of had, she was hyperventilating during the climactic scene. It was really a full experience

for her. And, you know, I suppose that in working with Darren Aronofsky on that, you become closer, you feel challenge as an artist, you get swept up by this guy who wears scarves a lot. I get it. She's 26. It happens. It still is interesting. And it's been a particularly tough your passengers in this is not a great one to punch for her. And it's also just kind of a tricky time. We require, celebrity requires so much exposure at this point. We were talking about this on jam session earlier that you get tired of everyone. And I think she's kind of, this is a bad time for her to not have a great movie role.

So, yeah, she had an Oscar nomination for Joy, which is a weird for David O. Russell, weird movie, not weird. the way that Mother is weird, but I do think, you know, when you consider that in the context of the X-Men movies that she did, Hunger Games, this is someone who started at Winter's Bone, so she started outside of the mainstream, and then Surprise became part of the mainstream. That was her first nomination. She, I think, is more interested in being at the outskirts than her career has tended to suggest. And I wonder part of the reason she's so excited to be in Mother, is because it's not X-Men.

It's not Hunger Game. I don't think she wants to be pigeonholed as a movie star, but I think being a movie star is what allows her to make choices like this. Careful what you wish for. The minute somebody doesn't want to be a movie star, they are not a movie star. Let's wrap up with this. How do you think Mother's going to be remembered as a great experiment,

a colossal failure, not at all, a unique try at something that the movies don't have very much of these days, none of the above? Someone is going to try to make it into a cult. classic. I don't know if they're going to succeed, but I see that coming already. They're going to try, and good for them, whatever. What if that someone is Darren Aronovsky? I think it'll be around. I think people are going to rent it and hate it, but they're going to say that they saw it because it seems like a thing that it's fun to have seen, even if I hated it or didn't

hate it. Amanda? I think that we will get a couple more mother rip-offs from Aronovsky wannabees, which I'm very disappointed by. Obviously, it didn't make any money, but it didn't cost that much money. And eventually it will make enough money back or people will be curious enough on DVR. I'm like, oh, should I watch this and then turn it off after 20 minutes because it's crazy. Everyone going on dates with movie dudes in college right now, I feel for you. I feel for you. Oh, my God. Imagine all the people who are like, let's go on a first date to mother. Hey, have you heard about this movie, Mother? I can't. That's an excellent place to wrap this up, guys.

On the ninth day, we're resting. Amanda Dobbins. Cam Collins, thank you for joining me. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The Big Picture. Next week, we have a great conversation coming with the legendary British filmmaker Stephen Freers, who has a new film called Victorian Abdul, so please check that out. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Wanted to make sure you subscribe to The Watch with Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan.

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