Jennifer Lawrence is going from Katniss Everdeen to scream queen with the release of her new movie Mother!, but if she thinks that she's going to traumatize Hunger Games fans, she may want to remember what her YA franchise is really about.
Not much is known about Lawrence's upcoming film Mother! — and that's exactly the point. Director Darren Aronofsky, who also made famously unsettlingly psychological thrillers like Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, has remained particularly tight-lipped about what exactly the film is about. As far as I can gather from the trailer, it seems like audiences might be in for a bizarre cross of Rosemary's Baby and The Invitation, because there's definitely some gaslighting of JLawr's character going on.
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One thing Lawrence says fans can definitely expect? To be completely shook by this film.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter at the Toronto Film Festival, Aronofsky admitted that the film is a socially conscious one:
"Naomi Klein, the great writer, [sent me a message] that said how ironic it is that [Hurricane Irma] is making landfall on the premiere of your movie. I think we're seeing the reality of climate change, and it's really awful because we're seeing the human pain to it. I think this movie is a reflection of that, and a cautionary tale...This is turning the big ideas there into something that's scary and hopefully inspire."
Adding onto Aronofsky's comment, the American Hustle actress revealed that her new film should traumatize her young fans. She told THR:
"I was asked today if I think [Mother!] will traumatize the little fans that loved Hunger Games, and I was like 'I hope it does.' That's the whole point. I hope it does traumatize people into action."
Of course, Lawrence may be forgetting that she already made a pretty disturbing movie about the need for social change: The Hunger Games itself was a franchise about what happens when a totalitarian regime has full reign over the lives of its subjects. It's also a franchise in which children are forced to murder one another in a futuristic gladiator-style battle.
Do your worst, Mother!, because the kids watching The Hunger Games have seen some stuff.