Warning: This article contains MAJOR spoilers about mother! – do not read on unless you've seen the movie.
If you've just come out of the cinema having spent the past two hours watching Darren Aronofsky's unsettling new film mother!, you may have a lot of questions about the ending.
Fortunately, Aronofsky himself has spoken about the meaning behind and his own interpretation of the psychological horror.
"I wanted to make a film from the point of view of our mother, and I don't think the story of our journey with our mother is over yet, so this is very much a cautionary tale as well as reflection," he began, speaking at the Toronto International Film Festival (via PopSugar).
In essence, Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) represents Mother Nature and Him (Javier Bardem) is God.
The Biblical references don't stop there. Man (Ed Harris) and Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) are Adam and Eve, and their two sons (Domnhall and Brian Gleeson) are Cain and Abel. In the Bible, Cain murdered his younger brother.
"Everyone [working on the movie] was aware of the allegory, the actors were, but there was also a real story going on, which I wanted to ground the audience," Aronofsky said.
"I thought about Adam and Eve, and what was Eve? Eve was mischievous. And that's kind of where [Pfeiffer] started and sort of took it that way."
And then there's the question about the movie title. Why is it all in lowercase? Well, Aronofsky recently took part in a Reddit 'Ask Me Anything', and offered a big hint.
"To find out why there's a lowercase 'm', read the credits and look for the letter that [is] capitalized. Ask yourself what's another name for this character?" he posted.
One Reddit user replied, saying that Bardem's character Him is the only name properly capitalised and theorised that the intention behind this is to make it clearer that Him is indeed God.
"If all the other characters are upper case than you wouldn't notice the difference," they said. "Nobody has an actual name, they just have titles. Lawrence is the titular character, that is why the title and her name are lowercase.
"By singling Bardem as the only one with a capital, it's easier to make the connection that he is God."
mother! is in cinemas right now.
