Men is the latest film from writer/director, Alex Garland. It’s a stripped down horror film that follows Harper (Jessie Buckley), a recent widower who is still reeling from the sudden and traumatic death of her abusive and gaslighting husband, James (Paapa Essiedu). As a way to get away from the city, and find some peace on her own terms, she decides to rent a house in a small village. The house is owned by a peculiar gentleman who goes by Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), who shows her around before giving her the key. However, as she settles in, she finds herself potentially stalked by a stranger, and sees familiar faces around the town.
Alex Garland is a filmmaker that I have really enjoyed. I’ve loved his films as a director, I thought his FX miniseries, Devs, was brilliant, and I have plenty of fond things to say about his work just as a screenwriter with films like Sunshine and Dredd. With his sci-fi work in particular, he’s managed to find a way to bring an audience to a space where they can explore heady questions, but in a way that feels approachable and accessible, while also providing plenty of emotion and entertainment to spare.
Unfortunately, Men is the first time I’ve seen something from him where I find myself genuinely puzzled by what exactly he was going for. Or rather, it’s not too hard to see the various ideas that are practically bursting from the surface, but it’s either hard to see how these ideas connect, or it’s hard to see what the greater significance of those thematic connections are to the story as a whole. The broader canvas that the film is painted on is built around the idea of misogyny, but it has many other explorations that dig into PTSD, religious/pagan undertones, grief, and none of them really have room to breathe, leaving nothing but metaphors piling on top of each other.
That’s not to say there isn’t anything good about the film. Garland proves to be a visual maestro, utilizing bold color palettes, eerie staging, and a reliable eye for some truly gnarly imagery. The finale definitely leaves you with a strong impression, I’ll say that. Plus, you have returning collaborators like cinematographer, Rob Hardy, composers, Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow, and editor, Jake Roberts, who all contribute to a sight and soundscape that is consistently unnerving throughout the film.
Plus, you have two really great performances from Buckley and Kinnear. Buckley really nails the vulnerability of the character, at times capturing the fragility of a woman struggling to move from the abusive experiences of her deceased partner to the exhaustion of dealing with the various encounters with misogynistic men within the village. Speaking of, Kinnear goes big here, and in a way that I found really satisfying, as he plays multiple characters in the film, in one case even having his face digitally planted onto a child’s body. It’s exactly the right kind of choice for a film like this to be effective, and he clearly understood what he needed to do.
It’s just a bummer that Men doesn’t fully flourish, it’s ideas never come to life, and while there are certainly moments and images that are startling, creepy, and even moving, the film as a whole just doesn’t come together in a way that I found satisfying. It just feels kind of inert, like an old first draft that was in desperate need of some updates and rewrites. And while I don’t think it’s inherently bad that this is a film that deals in toxic masculinity and misogyny and features a creative team made up of entirely men, I do think some feminine perspective within the writing process wouldn’t have hurt things. When it’s all said and done, I didn’t come out of this having any strong feelings, which is a first for me when it comes to Alex Garland’s work, and in a way, that’s almost worse than if I really didn’t like it. It’s not a terrible film, but Garland is capable of better, and I look forward to what he has next now that this is out of his system.
Men is now out in theaters.