Mark Reviews Movies: MEN (2022)

Men, A24

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 19, 2022

In Men, writer/director Alex Garland provides a setup that's far more enticing than the payoff is satisfactory or even comprehensible. The filmmaker plays a skillful game in establishing the mystery, menace, and, as one can probably tell from the title alone, various layers of masculine malice of this countryside horror tale. When it comes time for the pieces of this puzzle to come together, though, Garland keeps things as enigmatic as they've been from the start.

This setup is something to admire—and on a few levels. The story revolves around Harper (Jessie Buckley), who takes a trip from London to the country for a vacation at a rented manor in a small town. The house's caretaker is Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), a chatty and awkwardly polite bumpkin of a guy, who gives Harper a tour of the house, offers suggestions for some local sites—the nearby woods, an old church, the local pub—to see, and sticks his foot in his mouth when he asks about her husband.

Harper suggests she's divorced from the man whose surname she used to book the stay, but the movie's opening sequence, a collection of dreamy images, climaxes with the sight of that husband, named James (Paapa Essiedu), in his final moments. While Harper watches with a bloody nose through her apartment window, she sees James falling past in slow motion and with a look of disappointed confusion on his face.

That's the foundation of the first mystery here, which has to do with the events that led to James' suicide or accidental death. As Harper's best friend Riley (Gayle Rankin) points out during one of their semi-regular video calls, Harper has come to this place to get away from the city, the apartment, and that memory. She's hoping to heal, not only from the loss, but also from the troubled marriage and the man James became during those final years—and, more pointedly, those final hours.

The other major puzzle here is in the present tense and more widespread. It has to do with the forest, where a naked man seems to follow Harper while she's on an otherwise relaxing walk. That extended sequence is easily the movie's most effective, as Garland subtly establishes the path Harper takes, using camera angles and specific landmarks (so that we can later notice how she diverts from the course on her return), and makes a strikingly eerie transition from a soothing stroll to a frightening chase.

That latter part arrives within a darkened tunnel, where Harper sings out notes and melodies, creating a little symphony from the echoes inside the space. Using silhouette and the approaching echo of a shriek, the filmmaker transforms the entire nature of the forest from a place of calm to one of terror. The presence of Harper's pursuer similarly turns a dilapidated but scenic farm, as well as the view to the yard from the manor's windows, into threatening sights, as his nude and mutilated body occupies what should be sanctuaries.

As for the larger mystery of this town, it follows a similar pattern of the everyday, the serene, and the secure becoming uninviting and sinister on account of the presence of a collection of peculiar and pernicious men. The peculiar part is that they all—every single one of them, from a local cop, to the patrons of the bar, to the vicar, to a rather ill-tempered boy and beyond—possess the same, familiar face.

They want and/or expect something from Harper, too: the boy who wants to play a game and the vicar who expects that Harper should be filled with guilt over the death of her husband (He also places his hand on her leg in the veneer of comfort, but the slight movement of his thumb announces other intentions). When she doesn't agree to those desires or match those expectations, the men lash out at her, and as we come to learn from her relationship with James, this is nothing new to Harper.

There's little, perhaps, that needs to be clarified about these patterns of behavior and reaction. The success of the gradual build-up to Harper's small-town nightmare is how Garland turns these everyday slights, insults, assumptions, and judgments that women encounter and suffer from men—known and strangers, both seemingly kind/helpful and obviously rude/threatening, alike—into the stuff of inherent tension and mounting terror. As the creepiness of that mildly changing but constant face persists and the threats to Harper become more obvious, Garland continues to display real craft in the suspense sequences. Meanwhile, Buckley's turn, as hopes and promises turn to disappointment and fear, is a showcase of reactive performance.

Everything seems to be in place and moving toward some sort of resolution and/or explanation that brings these ideas, these characters, and this story together. Garland, though, doesn't fulfill that potential, though, and the climax becomes an extravaganza of indescribable grotesquery.

It's horrific, to be sure, with mangled bodies, unnatural orifices, and a seemingly unending cycle of sliminess that overwhelm whatever meaning the filmmaker is aiming to communicate (On the other hand, maybe it's as simple as men existing as "a seemingly unending cycle of sliminess," but there are other suggestions here that clearly reach beyond that). Men creates plenty of horror and promise, but its final, extended note is one of frustration.

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