Mother (mother!)

"MURDERERS! It's time to get the...F*CK out of my house!"

- an enraged mother to the crowd and Him

mother (or Mother) is the eponymous protagonist of the 2017 psychological horror film of the same name.

She is portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence.

She is the wife of the renown poet Him, whose main goal throughout the film is to make a perfect paradise for her and her love.

Personality
mother at first appears as the perfect wife who genuinely adores her husband. Even though Him began to exploit her when guests began arriving to their house, she tries to keep a straight face out of obedience. However, she does eventually call out Him for his lack of affection with her, so the two engage in relations. Upon conceiving her child, mother tries to protect her son at all costs because she knew that her husband would endanger their child. Upon the demise and subsequent cannibalization of her baby, any compassion that mother may have felt completely dissolves, as she angrily incinerates herself and the house out of vengeance.

As she lay dying in Him's arms, mother admits that even though she was heartbroken that she couldn't give everything that she wanted for Him, she still possesses some love for her husband, and allows her to remove her heart.

mother!
The film begins with an unnamed woman burning the house that the married couple live in. Shortly afterward, Lawrence's mother awakens in bed, and starts about trying to make the house a paradise. Throughout the film whenever mother felt unsettled, a beating heart manifests from within the walls of the house. She also tries to encourage her husband who was suffering from writer's block. Despite this, Him seemingly grows more distant from her as her further spirals into the anguish of writer's block.

One day, a man arrives at the house, apparently mistaking it for a bed-and-breakfast establishment. Mother is slightly irritated by this man's appearance, but she allows him to spend the night at their home when Him was insisting that they should. Soon afterward, the Man's Wife makes herself unwelcome in the house, poking fun at mother because of how she hadn't been intimate with her husband. When the couple accidentally shatter a glass shard belonging to Him, they are thrown out. The couple's sons somehow locate them to the house, and they argue over the inheritance left for them when their father dies. In a heated moment, the older son of the couple overpowers his brother, and kills him. This leads to relatives of the couple arriving to the house to mourn the loss of the younger son. This further agitates mother as none of the guest give her the upmost respect. This culminates in some unruly guests breaks a pipe, causing the house to become flooded. Mother confronts Him, criticizing him for allowing all of these guests into their domain. However, she gets cut off by Him who forcefully kisses her, leading to the two engaging in sex. She announces to Him that she was pregnant the next day. Delighted by the news, this inspires Him to begin writing again.

The poem becomes a massive success which leads to more people invading the house, and desecrating rooms in order to prove that they were there. Mother passes through various rooms, each room has inhabitants in them that are committing horrid actions like trafficking, satanic rituals, and executions. Him barricades mother in his study where she inevitably gives birth. When Him asks to present his newborn son to the crowd of people, mother refuses, knowing that Hims' followers would surely kill the infant. The two stare at each other for an extended period of time until mother succumbs to sleep. She wakes up to her horror that the baby had been pried from her by her husband, and that the baby was being carried violently by the crowd. The baby's neck snaps from the blunt force, and when mother races where the baby was last seen, she realizes that a cult that was established was consuming the mutilated corpse of her son. She slaughters a great bit of the crowd, only to be overpowered and nearly beaten to near-death. Him saves her, and while he is sorrowful over his loss, he insists that they forgive his followers. This is the final straw for mother, and she runs into a basement, and pours oil onto the ground. Before lighting the oil, she accuses Him of loving her merely because she loved him. The house becomes engulfed in flames, consuming Him's followers.

Him carries the charred body of mother in his arms, making her realize that whatever Him was, he certainly wasn't human. Him explains to her that as a creator, he has to continually create, and reveals that he truly did not want her to suffer as much as she did. As a final act of love, mother allows Him to remove her heart. Mother's body blackens as a result. Him then takes her heart and squeezes it between his hands, extracting a crystal from it. He then places the crystallized object on the stand, and somberly laughs. The house is remade, and a new version of mother awakens in the bed, loudly wondering where her husband was.

Symbolism
While it is generally agreed upon (and outright confirmed) that mother represents the physical embodiment of the Earth, and/or Mother Nature, there are several darker suggestions as to what she represents. One lesser known theory is that mother is an allegorical representation of Lucifer, otherwise known as Satan. According to some beliefs, Lucifer was created as being the most beautiful out of God's creations, at least until mankind was created. When God presented the angels to humans, Lucifer became enraged, believing that humans were inferior to him (in some instances, he was even told to bow to man). in mother!, mother expresses nothing but contempt for the guests that arrive to her house, culminating in her committing to what is the equivalent of a planetary genocide. Her actions can be interpreted as her being envious of all of the love that Him expresses to his followers sometimes at the cost of mother sacrificing everything, but it is not enough.