MEN


 By Graham Craycraft

Men is the newest film by writer/director Alex Garland. Garland is best known for his two movies Annihilation and Ex Machina. Both previous films are excellent additions into the modern sci-fi genre. This newest one, Men, is more in line with what I have dubbed as the New Age Horror that leaves cheap jump scares and thin plot lines behind for more psychological and often folk based stories. Think Midsommar, Hereditary, The Witch, and even Lamb. The New Age Horror bring terrifying to a new level, and it is a very exciting time to be in genre. Men is also through A24 production company which if you have read many of our pieces here you know we love A24. I do not love this movie.

Men is about a woman, played by Jessie Buckley, who retreats to the English countryside after the suicide of her husband. She wants to treat herself and try to work through the pain of his death. What she finds is not that, however. The men of the town begin to terrorize her slowly at first then it ramps up to utter chaos. The scenery is beautiful, and some camera shots and scenes are done very well. One such scene is a slow-motion drug/dream fade out where the main character is lifted and falls back out of terror into “safety.” Very cool, but scenes like this are not enough to save or even salvage this movie.

The name of the movie should tell you a lot about what kind of movie this is going to be. Sexist. The characters are overly sexist towards the main character in every facet with no redeeming qualities. Small comments right as the movie begins like go to the kitchen and make tea while I struggle to get your bags from the car. Then it moves up to statements such as “men hit women. It isn’t pretty, but it’s the truth.” The only character besides the protagonist the audience is allowed to like is a female cop. Really? No redeeming men to be found? Every male character that appears on screen, except the husband, is played by the same actor, Rory Kinnear. Landlord, cop, barman, blue collar worker, priest, even a child that had horrible CGI applied over his face to be the main actor. Done this way to show no matter what profession you hold, or who you think you are, all men are the same. Sexist, pedantic, and conceited. Alex, are you trying to tell us something personal?

The ending sequence will leave the squeamish nauseated and even the strong stomached will still be sitting there irritated. At a few points I burst into laughter because of how unsubtle and pointless the symbolism was. As I have stated in other reviews, I love weird if it means something. This had weird features just to be weird; there was no substance to be gathered from the oddity of this film. This movie is preachy, heavy handed, and a true failure especially compared to a movie like Ex Machina.

 

Go check out his other two movies but do yourself a favor and avoid this one. 35/100

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