Anger over the 'gross, horrendous' new poster for mother! featuring a battered Jennifer Lawrence

Ben Arnold
·Contributor

As if the reaction to the first poster for Darren Aronofsky’s new psychological horror movie ‘mother!’ wasn’t visceral enough, its latest artwork appears to have hit a particularly raw nerve.

Released complete with press quotes about the film – to perhaps temper talk of mixed reviews – it features its star Jennifer Lawrence with a disturbingly battered and bruised face.

And it’s now got movie fans pretty angry about depictions of abuse being used to market a movie.

It’s been rather a case of mixed fortunes for the project, which Aronofsky has called ‘a punk movie’ that’s been designed purposely to provoke reaction.

“We wanted to make a punk movie and come at you,” he said, speaking to US radio host John Horn.

“And the reason I wanted to come is because I was very sad and I had a lot of anguish and I wanted to express it. Filmmaking is such a hard journey. People are constantly saying ‘No’ to you. And to wake up every morning and get out of bed and to face all those ‘No’s,’ you have to be willing to really believe in something. And that’s what I look for in my collaborators and what I pitched the actors.

“So I wanted to howl. And this was my howl. And some people are not going to want to listen to it. That’s cool.”

This isn’t the first time a movie poster featuring Jennifer Lawrence has provoked controversy. In 2016 a poster for ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’, featuring J-Law’s Mystique being strangled by Oscar Isaac’s titular villain, was also slammed for promoting “casual violence” against women.

‘mother!’ is in cinemas now.

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