Men (2022)

Directed by Alex Garland. Starring Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Gayle Rankin, Paapa Essiedu. [R]

In the aftermath of her husband’s (Essiedu) suicide—or was it an accident?—Buckley takes a trip to a country house in a small English village owned by an avuncular but awkward man (Kinnear). Eerie things are afoot in the area, however, as she encounters a vaguely hostile (and not-so-vaguely naked) man in the verdant woods who appears to be watching her intently, and has brief conversations with other locals that carry with them similar ominous undercurrents of danger. Arty, affronting folk horror film carries a lot of the same thematic baggage, immersive moodiness, and lush visuals as Garland’s previous two directorial efforts (Ex Machina, Annihilation), as well as a similar refusal to tie up all the threads of his avant-garde sermons in a tidy bow. Teeming with the sort of unnerving provocations that inspire heady debate into theories and meanings, notably the devious spins on (and criticisms of) masculine identity patterns, grief, agency, incel culture, and more, where even the clues are as fascinating as they are cryptic; for example, the only male character in the film not played (or inhabited through digital trickery) by Kinnear is her deceased spouse. Buckley is a compelling screen presence throughout, even though it’s a shame that her character is defined almost exclusively by her complicated relationship with Essiedu and her reaction to his death, while Kinnear gets under the skin in subtle ways, refusing to give in to the sort of theatrics that would tip off the viewer about his intentions, much the same way as Garland never succumbs to the pressures to deliver conventional scenes of terror or violence to satisfy the so-called “Saturday night crowds.” Some will be unable or unwilling to follow the story all the way through the film’s audacious final act—its grotesque surprises could be described as pretentious and/or opaque in either complimentary or derogatory terms—but Garland sticks the landing with an archly complacent flourish, that’s for sure.

76/100