New Clips Deepen Mystery of Jennifer Lawrence’s Thriller “mother!”

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UNITED INTERNATIONAL PICTURES

New Clips Deepen Mystery of Jennifer Lawrence’s Thriller “mother!”

From the director of the Oscar-winning Black Swan comes Paramount Pictures' upcoming horror thriller, mother! starring Jennifer Lawrence.

Photo credit: UIP

Check out the new footage from the film at https://youtu.be/bP1EbP53wVY and https://youtu.be/FwwUT8lbmfQ and watch mother! in Philippine cinemas September 20, 2017.

In the film, Mother (Lawrence) and Him (Javier Bardem) live in a seemingly idyllic existence in a secluded paradise. But the couple’s relationship is tested when man (Ed Harris) and woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) arrive at their home uninvited. Answering that knock disrupts their tranquil existence and as more and more guests arrive, mother is forced to revisit everything she knows about love, devotion and sacrifice.

Paramount Pictures presents a Protozoa Production of a film by Academy Award® nominated director, Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream): Academy Award® winning actress Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) and Academy Award® winning actor Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) in “mother!” co-starring Academy Award® nominee Ed Harris (The Truman show) and Academy Award® nominee Michelle Pfeiffer (The Fabulous Baker Boys).

Costume designer is Academy Award® nominee Danny Glicker (Milk) and editor is Academy Award® nominee Andrew Weisblum (Black Swan). Production designer is Philip Messina (The Hunger Games). The director of photography is the Academy Award® nominee Matthew Libatique (Black Swan). Executive Producers are Jeff Waxman, Josh Stern and Mark Heyman. Produced by Scott Franklin and Ari Handel, the film is written and directed by Darren Aronofsky.

mother! is distributed in the Philippines by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE BACK IN BATTLE FORM AS MYSTIQUE IN “X-MEN: APOCALYPSE”

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 It has been 10 years since the heroes of “X-Men: Days Of Future Past” saved humanity and themselves from threats within and without. Now, in “X-Men: Apocalypse,” things are – at least for people like Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) – a little more settled. Humanity is aware of the mutants living among them and relations have been, for the most part, peaceful. But all that changes when the ancient, incredibly powerful mutant known as Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) awakens in the early 1980s and begins to destroy the world as we know it, convinced that he can create civilization again the way he thinks it should be. With Bryan Singer once more directing, “X-Men: Apocalypse” promises a huge global adventure and another thrilling mission for the world’s favorite mutants.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

                The world of 1983 also has undergone upheavals in the treatment of mutants.  This next stage of human evolution is now accepted by most—but not all—of humanity, thanks to the heroism of Raven/Mystique, who (as seen in “X-Men: Days of Future Past”) prevented the assassination of the U.S. president and a war between mutants and humans. 

                Jennifer Lawrence is back as Raven aka Mystique, a blue-skinned shapeshifter, is seeking her true purpose, as well as elusive self-acceptance.  In the years leading up to “X-Men: Apocalypse,” she had tried to stay hidden from the world, shunning her celebrity as the face of hope and change for the new, mutant-integrated world.  She resists bearing the weight of that label, and feels much of her past doesn’t warrant the world’s perception of her as a hero.

Now, Raven is living by her own code and working independently as an underground mutant savior, to fight against the remaining instances of human exploitation of mutants and save those still being persecuted.

                “The character is more ‘Raven’ than ‘Mystique’ in this story because she cannot be her true mutant self in a world that she feels is still not as mutant-friendly as it’s perceived to be,” says Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, who first played the role in “X-Men: First Class” and then reprised it in “Days of Future Past.”  “That’s why she has basically been Raven since the events of the previous films, so no one would know she’s that mutant. When we meet her in this film, she’s been living a covert life as Raven.”  Raven’s mission to help mutants where she can culminates in her leading the X-Men in a massive battle with Apocalypse.  But first she is reunited with the two men with whom she is closest, and with whom she shares a complex and evolving history: Charles Xavier (aka Professor X) and Erik Lensherr (Magneto).  Raven and Charles have a long history together and were part of the original X-Men team.  In the subsequent years they grew apart, separated by both distance and philosophies. 

                Costume designer Louise Mingenbach drew upon the resources and inventory of numerous costume rental houses in the U.S. and Montréal and scoured retail vintage stores across North America to find thousands of wardrobe items needed to dress performers in 1980s apparel from Cairo, East Germany, and the U.S.  For Jennifer Lawrence, Mingenbach took into account Raven’s modus operandi:  “She’s fighting for a cause and is not particularly concerned with how she looks,” says the designer.  She found Lawrence a “Chrissie Hynde type” studded leather jacket and an old rock-‘n-roll t-shirt.  “1983 was the great era of the rocker chick,” says Mingenbach, “and that kind of look reflected Raven’s rebellious nature.”

JENNIFER LAWRENCE REUNITES WITH BRADLEY COOPER IN IN “JOY”

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE REUNITES WITH BRADLEY COOPER IN A MODERN-DAY CINDERELLA STORY IN “JOY” MOVIE

                Based loosely on the life and rise of inventor and home shopping star Joy Mangano, starring Jennifer Lawrence in the titular role for which she is nominated in the Best Actress category in this year’s Academy Awards, the genre-blurring story of “Joy” follows the wild path of a hard-working but half-broken family and the young girl who ultimately becomes its shining matriarch and leader in her own right.  Driven to create and take care of those around her, Joy experiences betrayal, treachery, the loss of innocence and the scars of love.  Ultimately, she finds the steel and the belief to follow her once-suppressed dreams.  The result is an emotional and human comedy about a woman’s rise – navigating the unforgiving world of commerce, the chaos of family and the mysteries of inspiration while finding an unyielding source of happiness.

                Joining Lawrence is a typically wide-ranging Russell ensemble including Robert De Niro as Joy’s hot-tempered yet hopelessly romantic father; Edgar Ramirez as Joy’s ex-husband, a struggling musician living in the basement … with her father; Diane Ladd as Joy’s insightful and influential grandmother; Virginia Madsen as Joy’s soap-opera addicted mother; Isabella Rossellini as her father’s well-off Italian lover; Dascha Polanco as Joy’s life-long friend and confidante,; Elisabeth Rohm as Joy’s rivalrous sister and Bradley Cooper as the mogul-style home shopping executive who becomes both Joy’s ally and adversary. 

                Outside of Joy’s family, her biggest ally – and later her greatest business rival – is QVC executive Neil Walker, portrayed by long-lived David O. Russell collaborator Bradley Cooper, an Oscar® nominee for Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle as well as Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper.   Cooper and Russell talked about bringing a dash of early Hollywood mogul to the character, having Cooper explore an easy flair and optimism new to their work together.

                The character both soothes Joy with his exuberant love of invention and fires her up to outdo his expectations.  Cooper explains:  “Neil’s a fictional composite of several people at QVC who worked with Joy.  What’s so interesting about him is that he’s a guy who becomes more relaxed the more the pressure increases.  I liken him to certain coaches I had growing up who were always on an even keel amidst utter chaos – and in that way I think he has a kinship with Joy.  At the same time, he takes his business very seriously.  He sees himself as a Jack Warner or Daryl Zanuck, building an empire of dreams.  He’s not messing around and there’s no irony to him.  He believes everything he says.” 

                Rather than a typically malevolent corporate presence, Cooper approached Neil as someone who is exhilarated by giving people that one-in-a-million shot.  “Neil is someone who doesn’t look like other television executives, just as Joy doesn’t look like an inventor,” Cooper observes.  “And he’s very aware that he was given a chance by Barry Diller to make QVC work.  So he loves that he’s now in a position to give others who might be iconoclasts the chance to realize their biggest ideas.  When he meets Joy, she’s on the precipice of changing her life and he gives her that opportunity.” 

                Cooper notes that he grew up with QVC.  “My mother always ordered from QVC, and it was always on in my parents’ bedroom,” he recalls.  “I’d come home from school and the front door would be wedged open with a QVC package waiting.  I even had the Miracle Mop in my college dorm.” 

                He had fun exploring the behind-the-scenes life of that world he only saw from the other side.  But Cooper’s greatest pleasure was watching Jennifer Lawrence fully embody Joy. “She has become this incredible force. She always was from the start – but now it’s being realized in new ways,” he comments.  “She has this grounded, very rooted way of walking through a movie.  It’s similar to what I’ve encountered with De Niro; I find them very similar in terms of the way they approach the work.  That’s probably why David works with both of them over and over.” 

JENNIFER LAWRENCE IN "JOY"

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RAGS-TO-RICHES STORY OF A STRUGGLING SINGLE MOM IN JENNIFER LAWRENCE STARRER “JOY”

                Close to home, “Joy” introduces us to a woman who carries it all, played by Jennifer Lawrence in the titular role – being a single mom, caring for her parents, paying the bills and working 24/7 just to make ends meet.

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

                “Joy” follows on the heels of diretor David O. Russell’s “The Fighter,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle,” which between them garnered 25 Oscar® nominations.  Each unleashed an unforgettable array of cinematic characters yet also honed in on a singularly compelling idea:  the allure and trials of re-inventing oneself.  Joy takes that same idea somewhere new – as Russell takes on the question of how one person, confronted with madcap circumstances, endless obstacles and a long road of self-searching, forges a meaningful, joyful life. 

                While Joy’s life moves forward, the film’s style hearkens back in time, revisiting and redesigning the craftsmanship and melodrama of classical Hollywood cinema for our image-laden times.  The film stars Academy Award® winner Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, The Hunger Games series) as Joy, in a multi-hued portrait that spans from youth to her 40s, from dreams deferred to fighting for her honor to striving for self-fulfillment. 

                Says Lawrence: “This is a story about so many things.  It’s not just the story of Joy. It’s about family, imagination, faith in yourself, about the ruthlessness of success and what it means when you find it. I love most of all how much Joy changes.  I loved taking her from vulnerable and self-deprecating to cold and strong, and I loved that she turns into a real matriarch of her family.” 

                Joining Lawrence is a typically wide-ranging Russell ensemble including Robert De Niro as Joy’s hot-tempered yet hopelessly romantic father; Edgar Ramirez as Joy’s ex-husband, a struggling musician living in the basement … with her father; Diane Ladd as Joy’s insightful and influential grandmother; Virginia Madsen as Joy’s soap-opera addicted mother; Isabella Rossellini as her father’s well-off Italian lover; Dascha Polanco as Joy’s life-long friend and confidante,; Elisabeth Rohm as Joy’s rivalrous sister and Bradley Cooper as the mogul-style home shopping executive who becomes both Joy’s ally and adversary. 

                “Joy” joins a long legacy of films about chasing dreams of success in business and family -- but it does so in its own comedic, emotional and inventive ways.  The story began with the unlikely but real-life narrative of Joy Mangano, who in the 1990s became a new kind of television star and entrepreneurial powerhouse with a series of household inventions, including the famed, “self-wringing” Miracle Mop, which kicked-off the Long Island single mother’s ongoing business empire.

               

                Says Russell:  “The idea that drew me was how do you tell the story of more than 40 years of a life, from the magic of childhood, through marriage, divorce and single parenthood, to going back to fulfilling on those childhood dreams?  How do you tell the story of a person’s soul – and how that soul is comprised of all the people we love, the ideas we have, the things we cherish?  JOY brings together all these pieces. You have trauma and love.  You have a girl who grows up in her father's metal garage and in her mother’s refuge of soap operas filled with strong women.  You have a dreamer ex-husband in the basement who is still a friend and a loving sister who is an envious rival.  And you have a cable television station in Lancaster, Pennsylvania that becomes a factory of dreams.  In the middle of it all, you see Joy develop a quietly fierce determination that sees her through.” 

“JOY” MOVIE STARRING JENNIFER LAWRENCE NOMINATED IN BEST PICTURE AND BEST ACTRESS CATEGORY

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Academy Award® winner Jennifer Lawrence stars in this year’s highly-anticipated movie “Joy” this awards season directed by of David O. Russell that probes four decades in the upward-moving life of a single-mom-turned-business-magnate to explore how daring, resilience and the persistence of vision carry people from the ordinary into extraordinary moments of creation, striving and love.    

                “Joy” has recently been nominated for two major awards in the upcoming (2016) Golden Globes – Best Motion Picture, Comedy and Best Actress In a Motion Picture, Comedy (Jennifer Lawrence).  "I am incredibly grateful to be recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press for my role in JOY. It was an enormous privilege to play such an amazing woman. And it is an honor to be among the other extraordinarily talented women in this category. I share this with David O. Russell and the incredible cast and crew,” says Lawrence on her nomination.

                The movie is based loosely on the life and rise of inventor and home shopping star Joy Mangano, the genre-blurring story of JOY follows the wild path of a hard-working but half-broken family and the young girl who ultimately becomes its shining matriarch and leader in her own right.  The result is an emotional and human comedy about a woman’s rise – navigating the unforgiving world of commerce, the chaos of family and the mysteries of inspiration while finding an unyielding source of happiness.

                “Joy” follows on the heels of David O. Russell’s “The Fighter,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle,” which between them garnered 25 Oscar® nominations.  Each unleashed an unforgettable array of cinematic characters yet also honed in on a singularly compelling idea:  the allure and trials of re-inventing oneself.  Joy takes that same idea somewhere new – as Russell takes on the question of how one person, confronted with madcap circumstances, endless obstacles and a long road of self-searching, forges a meaningful, joyful life.  While Joy’s life moves forward, the film’s style hearkens back in time, revisiting and redesigning the craftsmanship and melodrama of classical Hollywood cinema for our image-laden times. 

                Joining Lawrence is a typically wide-ranging Russell ensemble including Robert De Niro as Joy’s hot-tempered yet hopelessly romantic father; Edgar Ramirez as Joy’s ex-husband, a struggling musician living in the basement … with her father; Diane Ladd as Joy’s insightful and influential grandmother; Virginia Madsen as Joy’s soap-opera addicted mother; Isabella Rossellini as her father’s well-off Italian lover; Dascha Polanco as Joy’s life-long friend and confidante,; Elisabeth Rohm as Joy’s rivalrous sister and Bradley Cooper as the mogul-style home shopping executive who becomes both Joy’s ally and adversary. 

                Says Lawrence: “This is a story about so many things.  It’s not just the story of Joy. It’s about family, imagination, faith in yourself, about the ruthlessness of success and what it means when you find it. I love most of all how much Joy changes.  I loved taking her from vulnerable and self-deprecating to cold and strong, and I loved that she turns into a real matriarch of her family.” 

                “Joy” is released by 20^th Century Fox and distributed by Warner Bros.