Men review – Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew (It’s very good)!

Men review – Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew (It’s very good)!

At the climax of Annihilation, Alex Garland’s masterpiece of a head trip, it becomes clear that the writer/director has moved beyond the tangible and into a style of storytelling that finds truth in feeling rather than in quantifiable plot developments. This isn’t to say that what occurs is cryptic, but it’s definitely pretty far out there. The best way to describe it would be “you just gotta see it.”

The source novel(s) for Annihilation (by Jeff VanderMeer) are some of the headiest, trippiest, most surreal sci-fi/horror stories this side of Lovecraft and Clarke, and it’s clear that their tone has indelibly affected Garland’s work, bridging the gap between the techno-paranoia of Ex Machina all the way to the surreal, upsetting horror of Men.

And Men is profoundly upsetting in the best ways imaginable.

After a tragedy (the details of which I shall not speak on any further) puts an end to her marriage, Harper (Jessie Buckley) is taking some time away. She goes beyond her budget to rent a quaint-but-luxurious home in a remote village. The homeowner, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), seems nice enough, if a little batty, but as he shows Harper around the property, he can’t help but to be “helpful” in the way that many self-proclaimed gentlemen tend to be when dealing with an attractive young woman. It’s nothing egregious, but the meaning of the title is immediately made clear. There’s a horror to living in a man’s world, and Harper simply cannot escape it, even while on vacation. She manages to brush off her host’s “politeness,” but it’s not long after her interactions with the heartily-toothed man that things start to feel…off.

Harper explores her abode and the village in which it lies, while doing her best to avoid contact with the men of the area (all of whom are played by a heavily made up Rory Kinnear – this is not a spoiler). As she does this she attracts the attention of a real creep: a fully nude peeping tom. While she manages the fallout from this awful development, we are treated to flashbacks of her now ceased married life.

This is a hard movie to spoil considering where it ultimately goes, but I shan’t say more. It really is best that you go in as blind as possible.

Garland leans on standard horror construction to deliver plenty of spooks and chills, but never does he settle into any tropes. In fact, these classic horror gags seem employed only for their eventual subversion. On a macro level all the way down to simple shot choice, Garland makes sure that we are never given a chance to settle in, just like our protagonist. Just as she wants to escape her troubles and drink in some R&R, only to be waylaid by the men in town, we in the audience will not ever be given the freedom to exhale. Any and all release must come in the form of squirms (and if you aren’t squirming, maybe you should look inward, sir).

Buckley is, of course, fantastic. Between this and I’m Thinking of Ending Things, she’s shown how game she is for embracing the surreal, acting in both pictures as the sole anchor to the real world (which is funny if you’ve seen ITOET and know how it ends). But she’s not just a victim upon which trauma can be heaped. In the multitude of flashbacks to Harper’s married life, Buckley shows off some serious dramatic chops. So often a more surreal film like this one can leave some characterizations undercooked, as the surrealism can be an excuse for a nagging incomplete feeling. That is not the case here. Even though much of the story is told through cinema rather than through the words on the page, Buckley brings life to Harper, and a sense of emotional complexity that comes through in her full-bodied performance. It’s not just what she says, but how she exists in space. There are few performers who can wear such a breadth of feeling without leaning into bald affectation. Buckley is a superstar who feels like a normie, and a normie who feels like a superstar.

The runaway performance here goes to Kinnear, who plays a variety of men, each with a completely different look and manner of being. He finds comedy in the darkest areas, and horror in the most seemingly innocent. This roster of “helpful” men run the gamut from microaggression to full on assault, leading to a finale that, well…. fuck. Kinnear is tasked with making each of his characters threatening at different degrees and he absolutely nails it. Legitimate laughter and uncomfortable laughter are forced to mingle with the aforementioned squirming, resulting in, as you can probably tell from the shallowness of my prose, a truly indescribable final product.

Plenty will love it, plenty will not. Most will be confounded, but all will be affected.

Directed by Alex Garland

Written by Alex Garland

Starring Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Gayle Rankin

Rated R, 100 minutes

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