A film review by Craig J. Koban August 11, 2022

MEN  ½ 

2022, R, 107 mins.

Jessie Buckley as Harper  /  Rory Kinnear as Geoffrey  /  Paapa Essiedu as James  /  Gayle Rankin as Riley

Despite its extremely economical and blunt title, writer/director Alex Garland's MEN doesn't fit neatly into compartmentalized genre conventions.  That's probably both a compliment and somewhat of a curse here, seeing as his third film - coming off his critically acclaimed and Oscar winning EX MACHINA and his less assured, but still quite good ANNIHILATION - begins strongly enough in terms of its core premise, but then takes some shocking and grotesque detours that almost defy a tasteful description here.  

True to form, Garland relishes in taking calculated and ambitious minded risks with his underlining material, not to mention that all of his films - in varying degrees of success - engage us in their thoughtful themes and ideas.  One of the main problems, though, with MEN is not that it lacks a viscerally chilling wallop or is missing a horrifying sensation of pure dread throughout as a piece of folk horror (there are far less sci-fi elements contained this go around), but rather that Garland perhaps bites off way more than he can chew with his film and frankly loses his way in a bizarre final act that's more disgustingly gruesome than terrifying.  Two thirds of MEN works sensationally well as a nightmarish twisted horror film, but the remaining third disappointingly misses the mark. 

But, man, as an exercise in mood and atmosphere, Garland is working on a deeply masterful level here, especially when it comes to the gothic environments and settings he conjures up.  In true horror film fashion, MEN is set in a vast, but foreboding castle secluded from the rest of society in rural England.  Harper (Jessie Buckley, in a thanklessly riveting performance) has just arrived for some much needed meditative time to herself.  She has gone through an unspeakably cruel tragedy in the suicide death of her husband, James (Paapa Essiedu), who - before his death - tried to blackmail her with threats of killing himself if she didn't rescind divorce proceedings.  Completely riddled with guilt and sorrow, she desperately seeks out this castle to get away from everyone and everything around her in hopes of getting some much need R & R time to get emotionally back into shape.   When she arrives the property owner in Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear) greets her and shows her around.  Outwardly, he seems like a soft-spoken, affable, and considerate host, but he just seems...well...almost too nice...unhealthily nice...disturbingly nice...to the traumatized Harper.   

Nevertheless, Harper commits herself to her two week stay, and as the days progress she begins to quickly realize that she's not alone and that other men randomly appear, and sometimes shockingly so.  There's a strange, scary, naked and scar covered man (also played by Kinnear) that appears like an ominous ghostly figure at the most inopportune times.  She surmises that this creep must be a sexual deviant and stalker, which results in a quick police presence and the arrest of the individual.  Harper thinks this is just an unfortunate snag on her time at the castle, but then she starts to meet the other men that populate the surrounding area, like a hippy-looking vicar (also played by Kinnear), who seems like he's about to be a kind figure of support to her, but then he starts making eerie sexual advances.  It gets worse when Harper meets a bizarre young lad (also played by Kinnear, albeit in what I'm assuming is some face-swapping VFX) that really wants to do some harm to her.  Harper's only source of solace is in FaceTiming her friend (Gayle Rankin) back home, but her calls with her become few and far between when these deeply disagreeable men begin to constantly pop up during her stay and their collective actions - shall we say - become less and less hospitable as the film progresses.

The core concept here seems like every woman's worst nightmare: Seeking a peaceful vacation away from society to only be tormented and haunted by a group of sinister and hellishly unhinged men.  Women being tormented by men has been a staple of horror since the early slasher films, but Garland isn't aiming for the cheap genre titillation of films like that.  He's more interested in exploring how this poor widow is being confronted by the worst kinds of toxic male masculinity (through various physical and psychological forms).  What makes MEN stand out is its art direction and production design, and Garland and cinematographer Ron Hardy do a spectacular job of making these picturesque locations appear anxiety inducing all the same.  The English countryside here looks initially inviting, but the more Harper is thrown into the rabbit hole - so to speak - of the true heart of darkness that lurks within the more haunting the film becomes.  I admired early scenes in the film when Harper journeys around the surrounding area and comes across a railway track and a dark tunnel, and when in horror films have dark and seemingly endless tunnels ever been a place of safe haven?  MEN doesn't revel in sensationalistic jump scare theatrics, though, but Garland takes perverse pleasure in teasing and tormenting audiences into wondering what evil lurks in the shadows.  So much of this film is about the implied menace of terrible things to come, which makes much of the first half here effectively frightening.  And watching Harper trying to save herself from going completely insane with everything that's transpiring around her (some of which has supernatural leanings) is unsettling, to say the least...and especially when it's one lone woman pitted against a trio of potentially psychotic and beastly men.   

As far as setups go, MEN might be as good as anything on Garland's resume thus far.  Alas, it's the ultimate payoff to that setup where the film just lost me and never recovered.  I think that much of this has to do with the central messaging at play here, and Garland usually doesn't fail his films in this regard.  What is he really trying to say about toxic masculinity here?  What is he really trying to say about women being forced to endure said toxic masculinity?  How does all of the obvious nods and referencing to folk history and ritualistic paean imagery bare relevance in all of this?  Is brutal misogyny a natural occurrence or is there a supernatural cause at its core?  I think that there's a highly relevant and important conversation to be had about the nature of male/female power dynamics on display in this story, and using the horror genre to explore them in a cunning manner seems like something that's precisely within Garland's wheelhouse as an intelligent and attentive filmmaker.  But too many of the ideas tossed into MEN seem too opaque and labyrinthine for their own good, and so much so that larger and more cohesive messaging seems hopelessly out of reach.  I have no problem with films that are purposely ambiguous and spawn discussion, but MEN simply confounds more than it stimulates the mind. 

All of this narrative and thematic confusion comes to a head during the film's closing moments, which jettisons all of the staggeringly successful building up of mood and atmosphere in the early stages and goes for - without going into spoiler territory - putrid and stomach churning body disturbance horror that appears like it was inserted in here from a whole different horror film altogether.  The images here are unforgettably sickening and will most likely linger with viewers for an awfully long time; to be fair, the makeup and effects work here rivals the best in its class spectacle of monstrosities from John Carpenter's THE THING or David Crownenberg's THE FLY.  But Garland seems so hell bent on nauseating us here that all of the solidly uncomfortable world and premise building earlier on becomes redundant as the story culminates to its WTF final act.   It's all too bad, because buried deep down within MEN is a much sharper social horror satire wanting to come out, but the plot mechanizations of the film's backend and Garland's creative choices make for a wholly unsatisfying and dramatically inaccessible final package when all is said and done.