Attention Darren Aronofsky loyalists: The word has gone out that mother! is an allegory about something or other. Climate change, haunted Biblical prophecy, invasive social-media malevolence, a personal Aronofsky confession…you tell me. It’s not about the images, behaviors and disturbances presented on the screen, but whatever may be suggested or implied by same. Go to town and kick it around, but don’t limit yourself solely to the visual and aural content.

Ben Croll’s 9.6 Indiewire review (“Aronofsky’s Audacious and Rich Cinematic Allegory Is His Most Daring Film Yet”) is one manifestation of this mode of absorption. As Croll writes, “Come for the house that bleeds; stay for the reflections on parenthood and the difficulty of living with fame.”

Excerpt #1: “Awash in both religious and contemporary political imagery, Aronofsky’s allusive film opens itself to a number of allegorical readings, but it also works as a straight-ahead head rush. Not just another baroquely orchestrated big-screen freak-out in the vein of Black Swan (though it is very much that), the film touches on themes that — if too hazily figurative to be in any way autobiographical — at least tread on factors in the director’s own life.

Excerpt #2: “The film is divided into two parts that roughly parallel one another for reasons that eventually make themselves clear. Both follow married couple Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem (and yes, their nearly 20-year age gap is an important and oft-commented upon plot point), who go unnamed as a way of telegraphing that they’re meant to represent Bigger Things.”

Excerpt #3: “Aronofsky and Paramount have launched one of the more secretive marketing campaigns in recent memory, which is odd because “mother!” is a not a particularly twisty-turny affair. Both parts of the film play out like the first few chapters of The Hobbit, where a growing number of unexpected guests pop in to break the leads’ bucolic solitude, and twist them toward different ends.”

Excerpt #4: “The first part plays as an impish psychological thriller, with Man and Woman foisting their own family drama on the childless central couple. It coasts on delicious, low-simmering interactions, like when the cat-like Pfeiffer playfully interrogates the more restrained and shy Lawrence, unearthing all of the younger woman’s innate insecurities, before devolving into outright chaos.”

Excerpt #5: “The second part finds the now nine-months-pregnant Lawrence contending with the throngs of fans who have come to meet her husband, but spins it toward an apocalyptic frenzy.”

Excerpt #6: “Aronofsky doesn’t lean toward claustrophobia. He externalizes his lead character’s horror into the foundations of the house. The house bleeds, it has oddly human-looking orifices, it has a beating heart. Aronofsky sends his characters into a nightmarish dreamscape that grows and evolves, particularly in the bonkers last third, which builds in pitch, scope, and sheer cinematic audacity, picking up overt religious and political resonance.

Excerpt #7: “As rioters, protesters, and refugees overtake the house, Aronosfky’s political message becomes clear. Try and hide all you want. You’re still a part of this world, and it’s coming for you.”

People come for me every day, or at least it feels this way. Or maybe, deep down, it’s about me coming for myself.