Alex Garland’s latest directorial feature stars Jessie Buckley as a young woman who goes on a solo vacation to the English countryside following the death of her ex-husband, and Rory Kinnear as the all various townsfolk that she meets, as strange things begin to occur.
Both Garland’s previous films, Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018), I am a fan of, especially the latter which I only watched recently for the first time, and Men definitely leans closer to that. Where Ex Machina was quite a straightforward sci fi flick, Annihilation delves a lot more into horror/ thriller elements, as does Men.
For about two thirds of the film, I thought Men was very good. Garland does a great job at slowly building the creepy atmosphere, added to by Rob Hardy’s beautiful cinematography, and it works really well as a slow burning folk horror. The shots of lush green forests or darkened train tunnels were striking visually in and of themselves, but then when you spot a figure in the distance of these shots, the beauty turns very ominous, and this gradual build really worked for me.
Jessie Buckley also does a great job as Harper, anchoring the film with someone to root for, as she is just an abused and troubled woman looking for peace in the countryside. Juxtaposed to her, Rory Kinnear exhibits all signs of eerie as the various men in the village, who are all unsettling and untrustworthy in different ways, from a nude stalker to a priest.
Sadly, where I have trouble is the overall arc of the film and its’ characters. I knew the building creepiness had to come to a head at some point, but for me it just didn’t stick the landing. To be honest, it missed the landing quite comfortably. It becomes very interpretive and ambiguous, and where I really enjoyed this about Annihilation, Men just took it too far for me. The repeated births (it’ll make sense when you see it) definitely held the unsettling nature, but added in a lot more confusion than before, leaving the final scenes feeling a bit undercooked. I’m certainly not at all claiming to fully understand the ending, but I’m not sure the attempted allegory is as profound as it seems to think it is, and the final act has a lot of symbolism for something that felt a bit puddle-deep to me.
Overall, Men is really intriguing for the most part, but what was a very solid horror/ thriller comes apart at the seams come the end. Definite points for originality though. Some people are going to love it, probably more are going to hate it, but if nothing else it’ll create good discussion.
6/10
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