"Men" - Film Review
Writer/director Alex Garland has not shied away from the bizarre. His directorial debut, Ex Machina, explored artificial intelligence, and his follow-up, Annihilation, contains some of the most off-putting visuals seen in modern movies. In that sense, it’s unsurprising that his newest feature, Men, takes a more grotesque approach to the concept of toxic masculinity.
Harper (Jessie Buckley) is reeling after the recent death of her husband, James (Paapa Essiedu). At the encouragement of her sister Riley (Gayle Rankin), Harper books a cottage in the English countryside to give herself space to process her loss. Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear, who also portrays all other male characters in the film) is the caretaker of the cottage Harper rents. He assures her, with a very unsettling smile, that he’s just down the road should she need anything during her stay. What begins as a relaxing break from the world turns into something far more sinister as Harper is stalked by a naked man.
Most audiences will leave the theatre discussing the oddities that occur within the final thirty minutes of the film. It’s impossible not to. The third act is full-on body horror under the guise of social commentary. That’s not to say that body horror can’t be used to express actual anxieties, traumas, and fears. Quite the opposite. Look no further than 2021’s Palme d’or-winning film, Titane, which effectively uses body horror as a means of processing familial longing, queerness, and love.
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The issue with Men is that it’s presented as if writer/director Garland has something new and thoughtful to say about the multitude of ways women are abused by men. Gaslighting, physical abuse, sexual abuse, unsolicited male nudity, and overall lack of trust are all experienced by Harper during the course of the film. Of course, because it’s a horror movie, these ideas are presented with an exaggerated and unnatural air of eeriness.
It’s clear that Garland wants to condemn toxic masculinity and its effect on women, but his efforts are laughable. Is he trying to warn women they could experience abuse? If so, that’s a woefully misguided goal. He would be hard-pressed to find a woman who needs to be reminded of it. Or maybe Garland is trying to tell men they must be better and look honestly at their own biases. If that’s the case, he has failed, because all the film’s male roles are such caricatures that their behavior elicits laughter from the audience. Garland may have wanted to call attention to the myriad of aggressions, both micro and macro, that women face, but he got lost somewhere along the way. Men isn’t making people think critically about the effect this level of toxic masculinity has on society as a whole. Garland scratches the surface of some interesting concepts, like how power and abuse can be linked to religious zealots’ impact on society, but it never amounts to anything deeper.
The final act and the entire film speak to a larger issue that exists within the horror genre. It seems many directors are now focused on creating a series of escalating visuals without putting any substance behind them. You can almost hear the director saying, “you know what would look so cool? A creepy Halloween mask laid over a dead bird’s face.” Unfortunately, there is no one asking what this would add to the film. These visuals feel as if they’re made exclusively for the trailer or to be shared on social media. When a movie is chock-full of them, as Men is, it’s essentially a sizzle reel of the writer/director’s wildest ideas.
Men is an elementary look at what it’s like to live as a woman in the 21st century. It’s an underwhelming, simplistic take on the very real violence that women face, packaged in a nonsensical, edgy indie format.
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