Inverse - 🍿 Review: 'Men'

JENNI MILLER

May 12 2022

Alex Garland’s surreal thriller is maddening in the best way possible

Alex Garland's Men is a harrowing, maddeningly surreal journey into the English countryside that will give viewers plenty to argue about after the credits roll. Drawing on home invasion, fairy tale, and folk horror tropes, Men features Jessie Buckley as a newly widowed woman seeking refuge at a pastoral rental estate, only to find herself surrounded by the same terrors that lurked back in the city. Or perhaps it’s all one terror with a thousand slightly different faces.

Over the course of its economical 100-minute runtime, Men goes from a seemingly simple drama about grief, to a showcase of everyday masculine aggression against women, to something far more eldritch and ancient. If Annihilation is a treatise on depression, trauma, and the drive to self-destruct, then Men is about the way grief peppers you with reminders of the person you lost (for better or worse) and how you eventually just learn to get on with it.

Garland and his go-to cinematographer Rob Hardy create a crisp, verdant world in the English countryside for Harper (Buckley) to escape into, which is a great contrast to the hazy memories that unfold over the course of the film of a pivotal argument with her late husband James (Paapa Essiedu) in their London flat. The home she’s rented is a Zillow dream, with a piano, a claw foot tub, ancient wood doors and beams, a huge kitchen, and lots of windows overlooking the estate. The main hallways and the master bath pulse with red paint. The nearby woods are inviting and lush, and Harper explores with a sensual joy, reveling in the rain and the echoes of a huge railway tunnel… until she notices something at the other end of the tunnel. It’s as if she dared to enjoy life for just a second and forget her grief, and her guilt took shape. Jessie Buckley is, of course, exquisite, and watching her in nearly every frame is a delight.

Harper gets lost in the woods — Men is not exactly subtle — only to find that the shape has taken the form of a naked man standing near the ruins of a house on the estate. He seems to have the same face as her landlord Geoffrey. When she sees the naked man, slightly greenish and slow-moving yet terrifying nonetheless, she calls the police, and one of the officers also looks alarmingly like Geoffrey. Other than the flashbacks to James, the only masculine face onscreen during Men is that of Buckley’s co-star Rory Kinnear, whether transformed with wigs and makeup or digital effects, as is the case with a particularly bratty little boy who curses at Harper when she refuses to play with him.

Each man Harper encounters reminds Harper of her place in the world as a woman in ways that will be immediately familiar to many viewers. These interactions may seem small and seemingly harmless, but they add up. Some encounters feel malevolent, such as the vicar who zeroes in on Harper’s guilt, but the sheer uncanniness of seeing that same male face everywhere makes you doubt your senses — especially as flashbacks reveal the terror and pain of Harper’s last moments together with James.

Is it possible Harper is simply an unreliable narrator, seeing danger where none lurks? Or is her gut correct, and it’s the world around her that’s gone mad? Harper’s best friend, played by Gayle Rankin, appears via FaceTime as an anchor to reality, cheering her on and reminding her of who she is and her place in the world, but Wi-Fi in the country is pretty glitchy — yet another connection to her past life, lost in the ether.

A pivotal scene in an empty church holds Men’s Rosetta Stone: an altar with a Green Man on one side and a Sheela-Na-Gig on another. These ancient, mysterious figures recall Men’s place in folk horror, with Harper as the outsider from town who disrupts the old ways. While the Sheela-Na-Gig has been reclaimed in some circles as a symbol of female empowerment, it’s not entirely clear what the figure and its pulled-open vulva meant throughout history: a celebration or a warning, a fecund mother or a gleeful crone. Either way, it’s meant to discomfit, much like Harper herself, a single, childless woman with short-cropped hair who refuses to cater to the seemingly endless parade of men and their needs and desires. (Garland says these figures were the original inspiration for Men, penning over dozen scripts throughout his career before finally landing on this one.)

We don’t have to wait too much longer for Men to reach its climax, which features some of the most staggeringly weird and gruesome imagery I’ve seen on screen since, well, the organic nightmares in Garland’s previous film, Annihilation.This sequence will either make or break this movie for many viewers. I was left confused and deeply (though, I must admit, gleefully) disturbed.

Men is audacious, terrifying, and annoyingly oblique. From its declarative title to the brilliant use of Rory Kinnear in a kaleidoscopic array of performances, Men wants you to think about gender and trauma, but the movie itself is a funhouse mirror reflecting back your own biases and experiences.

While there’s value to be had in those discussions, and didacticism doesn’t make for particularly great art, it’s also hugely tiring to tease out bits and pieces of evidence that this movie doesn’t actually think women might need a good slap in the mouth once in a while. I don’t believe that’s the message of the movie, or indeed that there is a message per se, but it is very tiring to take everything on good faith these days, especially as a female horror fan. Or, you know, just as a woman living in a world of Men.

Men premieres May 20 in theaters.

You're receiving this email because you signed up to receive communications from BDG Media. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please safely unsubscribe.

315 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10010

Copyright 2022 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

View in browser

Older messages

⚡️ Scientists rank the 8 best sci-fi time machines of all time

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Plus: Watch SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endurance splash into the Gulf of Mexico. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

⚡️ Reviewing the most important EV ever made

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Plus: The 1918 flu pandemic is still offering lessons for today's epidemiologists. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

🍿 Review: 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

In a world of prestige TV, the Star Trek franchise is suddenly playing a very different game. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

🧠 Why caring for your emotional well-being is so good for the body

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Plus: New experiments from the Large Hadron Collider could change physics forever. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

👩‍🚀 NASA’s plan to put humans back on the Moon hits another snag

Monday, May 9, 2022

Plus: Something lurks beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

ServiceNow ordered a year's worth of hardware to avoid supply chain hassles [Thu May 26 2022]

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Hi The Register Subscriber | Log in The Register {* Daily Headlines *} 26 May 2022 Two people standing next to racks of servers discussing work ServiceNow ordered a year's worth of hardware to

Finally — A watch collection that’s just as durable as it is cool

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Meet your new everyday watch. Presented by IWC. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

What A Day: All shock, no action

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Our long national nightmare continues. Wednesday, May 25, 2022 BY SARAH LAZARUS & CROOKED MEDIA -Herschel Walker, on gun control The death toll in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, TX,

GeekWire Mid-Week Update, Presented by ALLtech

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Read the top tech stories so far this week from GeekWire Top stories so far this week Amazon shareholders approve 20:1 stock split, vote down record 15 proposals at annual meeting Faced with a barrage

America's enduring gun problem

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

How did the country get to this point? Much of America's gun problem is caused by too many guns. Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin. TOP NEWS Why the US has so much gun violence

Why We Keep Letting This Happen

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Columns and commentary on news, politics, business, and technology from the Intelligencer team. Intelligencer Stay informed about business, politics, technology, and where they intersect. Subscribe now

Goodbye to all that this is us

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Good afternoon and congratulations to all celebrating the end of nearly two decades of terror: The Ellen Degeneres Show. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Your Thursday Briefing: A Texas school shooting

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Plus Russia's narrowed focus and Africa's evolving stance on Ukraine. View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story Morning Briefing, Asia Pacific Edition May 26, 2022 Author

Class Dismissed

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

This is what America is. Wednesday, May 25, 2022 - The Day's Most Fascinating News from Dave Pell NextDraft Logo Current Edition About NextDraft Wednesday, May 25, 2022 Share Edition 1 CLASS

Six steps to effective retail testing

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

When retailers don't test their initiatives before rolling them out, they risk making expensive errors. Following an optimized retail testing playbook will inform your decisions, saving the company