Men

Men
Starring Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Gayle Rankin
Directed by Alex Garland

Alex Garland is a master at both writing and directing, providing two of the most unique, powerful, and unforgettable films in recent memory: "Ex Machina" and "Annihilation," both of which are mind-bending thrillers that has the audiences questioning reality and awestruck at the wonderful way Garland not only tells the story, but the way he shows it as well. "Men" is the first time he dabbles in the truly horrific, and it's got all his earmarks plain and simple, but this time it'll leave audiences divided in how he chose to approach the material. What seemed very cut-and-dry from the onset is turned on its head in the utterly insane (and utterly unforgettable) final forty minutes where the main character - and the audience - are thrust into an unflinching hell that's deeply disturbing, but also darkly humorous as well.

Harper Marlowe (Jessie Buckley) has been through a lot recently, most notably the suicide of her abusive husband James (Paapa Essiedu), and she decides to leave London and spend some time in a quiet, idyllic village to get away from the guilty thoughts she's going through. The house owner Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear) is an offbeat fellow who belittles Harper for taking an apple from the tree before saying he was only joking, and makes references about where her husband is. Finally alone, Harper enjoys a walk in the woods until she runs into another man who begins stalking her, and it seems that everyone in the town is men, and they all treat Harper like the enemy, degrading her, gaslighting her, and making her feel like everything that's happened is her own fault. Is she going insane, or are the men in the village trying to drive her to insanity with their misogynistic undertones?

"Men" at first seems like a simple film to dissect: Harper was in a mentally (and physically) abusive relationship with her husband James, who threatens to kill himself if she would leave him. She does, and it seems that James follows through on his pact - or it could've been accidental. The flashback sequences occur in a strange orange hue that further exasperates the terror, with a shocking slow-motion fall that'll stick in your mind long after the film ends. Harper harbors guilt for what happened, but is it really her fault? She tries to get away from it all by going to the countryside, where she finds a whole new horror: all the men in town seem to be out to get her, and each man seems almost identical to the next. She's berated for being a woman, and even gaslit by the local vicar, who tells her that if she let her husband apologize then he wouldn't had killed himself. This all culminates in a truly shocking, disturbing, and downright confusing conclusion that had me up late scouring the Internet for possible answers to what I had just witnessed - and found that I was pretty much right all along, albeit with some religious and pagan imagery thrown in for good measure.

Garland is a master of directing, and he has a superb support group behind the scenes to make his visions reality. Cinematographer Rob Hardy establishes the shots with pinpoint accuracy, offering a deeper meaning than just what we see with our eyes, most notably when Harper is standing in front of a tunnel, dead center of the screen in an apparent nod to female fertility, which is also another aspect of the film. When she sings her song in the tunnel, it's haunting and disturbing, all the moreso when it seems to awaken a man on the other end of the tunnel, who unleashes his own howl in response. The music - composed by Garland mainstays Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury - add to the tension in powerful ways, most notably when they offer no compositions at all: much like the French horror film "Inside," there's moments in the film where you expect a jump scare accompanied by the plucking of a violin, but while the jump scare is there, the music isn't, giving the film a more eerie feel. Editor Jake Roberts beautifully weaves the story into a cohesive whole, especially in the gonzo finale that never gets its grip go of you, and leaves you pondering what you just witnessed.

Garland also is an expert writer, and gives his female leads powerful stuff to work with. For "Ex Machina," he gives Alicia Vikander her own inner strength as a humanoid robot who may or may not exhibit humanity. In "Annihilation" he furthers the female lead by supplying powerful stories not just for its star Natalie Portman, but her co-stars (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, and Gina Rodriguez) as well. "Men" is no different, as he gives Oscar-nominee Jessie Buckley her best story to date, as she not only has to deal with the literal hell around her, but her inner turmoil as well. Harper isn't a sheltered wallflower, but a woman who knows her own strength in the midst of the men around her treating her like she's a second-class citizen, and she's not one to shy away from a confrontation, and there's even some darkly humorous moments that Buckley relishes in, especially near the end of the film when you can just tell that her character is thinking, "well, that's it, I'm out."

Then there's Rory Kinnear, a longtime character actor who has his work cut out for him here, as he not only plays the offbeat Geoffrey, but also every single man in the village who comes at Harper with their own different misogynistic takes. Whether he's playing a lustful vicar, a bully youth, an uncaring cop, or, most notably, a naked man with connections to pagan fertility deities, Kinnear delivers each performance with perfect aplomb, which only adds to the continual sense of dread and unease.

The film is a film about misogyny, pure and simple, but told in a truly horrific fashion. Harper not only feels guilt for her husband's apparent suicide since he told her that it was her fault, but the men in the town aren't doing her any favors. The vicar - a man of the cloth who's supposed to be supporting - tells her it pretty much was her fault, while a local youth calls her the B-word after she refuses to play a game of hide-and-seek with him. The local policeman doesn't listen to her concerns, and there's a mysterious naked man stalking her. From the onset the film firmly establishes its sense of dread, and although it's a slow burn to its stomach-churning conclusion, that dread never lets up.

The Score: A+