Men

I was going to publish this earlier in the week, but even as I parsed out the film while writing this, I decided that it would best be left for Saturday, which is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day.

 

They're All Alike

or

Literally, I Don't Know What's Going On
 

Harper Marlowe (Jessie Buckley) wants to "get away from it all." She's just suffered a traumatic incident in her life: an argument with her husband James (Paapa Essiedu) over a divorce has resulted in his death—but whether it was a deliberate suicide or an accident is a matter of conjecture. Harper, however, feels responsible, even if the argument was a case of deflection, mutual accusations and a fight ended in her being hit. She had no control over James' actions and was locked in her apartment when she suddenly sees husband him fall past her window to be smashed on the pavement below. 

 

Some time has now passed and we watch Jessie drive away from London in her Ford Fiesta as the roads get narrower and the surroundings get more rustic. She is in the country, moving away from us to the background of Lesley Duncan's "Love Song" promising calmer surroundings and bucolic settings in which to recover, heal, and contemplate. She's alone now, and it appears that there will be plenty of time for her to get herself together.

Her destination is a country house four hours out of town, and its a lovely old structure, 500 years old—"Shakespeare. Or pre-" explains the owner, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear)—but with all the modern conveniences like inside plumbing, gas range, motion-sensor lights outside, and a lovely orchard dominated by a large apple tree, which (of course) compels her to pluck a fruit and take a large bite—Oh, that never works out good in stories. Geoffrey even makes a joke out of it "No-no-no-no-no-no-no. Mustn't do that. Forbidden fruit" then, he smiles a wide toothy grin and says it's just a joke, eat all she wants "make a chutney if you want." He gives her a tour of the place and it's a combination of ancient and modern, the walls painted an earthy red. That'll come in handy later. Blood-splatter and all.

She's all by herself—although Geoffrey reassures her he lives right down the lane—alone with her thoughts. She's still going over the argument in her mind, and the image of James falling past her window. She's haunted by it, the image of him on the ground, ankle shattered and twisted at an odd angle, his arm impaled at the wrist by a wrought-iron fence. She can't shake it, so she takes Geoffrey up on a suggestion to go on a nature walk. The pathways are rough and she gets a little lost until she comes across an overpass that produces a long tunnel with some interesting echoing aspects. But, at the other end she sees a figure who watches her and then runs towards her. She turns and runs back the way she came, but she gets lost and when another blocked overpass stops her cold, she roughs it up an embankment and continues her way back to the B and B.

She passes by a ramshackle house in terrible disrepair and decides to take a picture. But, when she views the snap...standing in front of it is a naked man (Rory Kinnear). She looks up from the camera and there he is, scratched up, scarred and watching her. She runs back to the B and B and calls a friend (Gayle Rankin), but while she's talking to her she doesn't notice that the man is now in the orchard and staring in the windows at her. When she finally notices, she calls the police and the man is arrested by a couple officers (Rory Kinnear and Sarah Twomey) and he's taken away—a vagrant, apparently, and considered "harmless."

But, he's not, is he? After her estranged husband's death, and then this creep, Harper no longer feels safe, not even in the house. But, the guy's in jail, right? So she goes on another walk around and comes across an ancient church. No one there. So, she sits and contemplates and the grief comes pouring out of her. The church vicar (Rory Kinnear) observes from afar, but does not approach. Outside, she encounters a tween (Rory Kinnear) wearing a Marilyn Monroe mask and starts hectoring her. The vicar interrupts, words are exchanged, and the kid stomps away, leaving Harper and the vicar to discuss her break-down in the church. But, the conversation leans into the accusatory even as the vicar leans in to touch her leg.

Ew.

Alex Garland's third film, Men, is a creepy, methodical horror film that finds dread in even the most innocent-seeming circumstances. One starts looking around corners of the screen for the out-of-place and off-putting, every note, every beat, every sound designed to put you on your guard. All that detail and all that deliberateness stands in the service of putting us in Harper's head-space of grief and isolation, where inner thoughts and outer appearances are mutual threats to the being. Then, when these men (Rory Kinnear) start showing up, all of them are passive-aggressive or just plain aggressive, not passing up an opportunity to imply, or judge, or man-splain, or dismiss...or accuse...or invade. It's clear that Garland is saying something about the lot of women, and the guarded world-view of threat that is endured on a day-to-day basis.

All well and good. Up to a point. As good a job as Kinnear does playing multiple roles in distinctly creepy ways, the fact that all the men are him creates a sense of false narrative to the point where we start questioning not them...but her and her state of mind. These guys can't be all the same person—there's a bar scene where everybody is played by Rory Kinnear (Rory Kinnear)—so, is there something wrong with her, with her perceptions? If the point was to show her threatened in a toxic man-verse, adding the doppelganger casting undermines it...and her.

The problem is compounded in the film's closing moments when the film escalates into gory/grotesque assault mode with stuff that surpasses the creepiness factor of John Carpenter's version of The Thing. What are we to make of these manifestations popping out of each other's orifices? Is it real? (Probably not). Is it some sort of alien manifestation...ala The Thing? (No evidence of this has been implied). Is it a manifestation of her guilt and just her imagination (Which throws her character under the bus and doesn't explain all the blood that shows up in the house).

This is the danger with "metaphorical horror." In trying to make a point, you lose the thread of the story. Is it real or is it imagination? Is she to be believed or is she a false narrator? I tend to be sympathetic with the view that a world of men—all with their instincts and neuroses and phobias and fetishes—can be a challenging, even a frightening challenge for women (I've heard and sympathized and emotionally grumbled over too many stories of men in cars keeping silent pace with a lone female walking a street and witnessed the predatory nature of men in all sorts of situations not to be). Perhaps it's a matter of a studio wanting a "wowser" of a third act to sell a movie—I've heard a lot of that, too—but A24 is an art-house studio with a track record of leaving projects alone. No, I think it's a matter of an unreliable writer/director trying to make a point visually that has already been made...and betraying the lead character that sympathy has been built around. 

I mean, even if all the gory manifestations were true, would anyone believe her? Or will they blame her, obsessing, say, on what she was wearing? Or whether the timeline of her story held up. Or, whether, by their reckoning, such a thing could be possible, and so, her story must be false. What about her body language, for God's sake? I've seen too many trials and confirmation hearings to believe otherwise.

And that's a true, more pervasive horror. Nothing metaphorical about it.