Starring: Jesse Buckly, Rory Kinnear and Paapa Essiedu.
‘What do you want from me?!’
I had an angry response to, Ex Machina (2014) (a strong response a sign of an emotive movie, I guess).
Conversely, I really enjoyed the head-bend of, Annihilation (2018).
So I was curious to see what writer and director, Alex Garland was going to evoke with, Men.
The film follows lead character, Harper (Jesse Buckly) – it’s raining outside.
She has blood smudged under her nose.
She runs.
She stays in an idyllic country house to heal.
Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear) shows her around, a classic affable Englishman, ‘Won’t be a jiffy,’ he says.
Then comments, ‘The M4, a dreary bore.’
Then adds, ‘Watch what you flush. It’s a septic tank and all…’
A jarring statement and a hint of what’s to come.
Geoff, it turns out, is one of the many men-clones, that Harper must endure during her time away from life.
Contrasting the clones is this heightened sense of beauty, the landscape like a moving Monet painting.
Beautiful, then flawed by a naked man, a running man, that stalks her.
The telling of, Men, feels off-centre but clever and green, like an expression of the primal with Harper taking an apple from a tree and taking a bite like Eve in the, Garden of Eden.
The film weaves around this theme of Adam and Eve, subtle, then visceral.
The present bleeds into Harper’s past, her screaming voice becoming one with the soundtrack.
What do you want from me?!
This constant demand becomes an extreme depiction of men’s misunderstanding of what a woman needs.
That a woman has her own life too.
Rather than a confronting horror, I found the thought behind the film refreshing.
I want to share with other movie fans those amazing films that get under your skin and stay with you for days: the scary ones, the funny ones; the ones that get you thinking.
With a background in creative writing, photography, psychology and neuroscience, I’ll be focusing on dialogue, what makes a great story, if the film has beautiful creative cinematography, the soundtrack and any movie that successfully scratches the surface of our existence.
My aim is to always be searching for that ultimate movie, to share what I’ve found to be interesting (whether it be a great soundtrack, a great director or links to other information of interest) and to give an honest review without too much fluff.
BAppSci in Psychology/Psychophysiology;
Grad Dip Creative Arts and
Post Grad Dip in Creative Writing.
Founder of GoMovieReviews.
View all posts by Natalie Teasdale
