They are all the same
Fact collides with metaphor in Men, a new edge-of-your-seat creepfest
Men are all the same. That's not just a trite saying in the latest creepshow from writer-director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation). With a couple of notable exceptions, every male character in his new film is played by British actor Rory Kinnear.
It's not exactly a spoiler to say that, but you could also be forgiven for not sussing it out straight away. In fact, for a good portion of the film, there are only three characters in total. Jessie Buckley — one of those can't-wait-tosee-what-she-does-next actors — is Harper, renting a country cottage to get over the death of her husband, played in flashback by Paapa Essiedu.
And then there's Geoffrey. Played by Kinnear in some truly atrocious prosthetic teeth — wouldn't be surprised to see the British Dental Association boycotting this one — he is the avuncular landlord of the rural rental property.
Or rather, he's trying for avuncular.
In fact, he's awkward and a bit domineering, his interactions with Harper pitched on the cusp of chivalrous and chauvinist.
When he finally leaves her in peace, she takes a walk and finds a long, damp tunnel, its spookiness eased by the fact that it returns pitch-perfect echoes as she trills into its darkness. She's very much enjoying creating a solo three-part harmony when a figure appears at the far end of the tunnel, silent and motionless before suddenly breaking into a sprint.
Harper, understandably freaked out, scarpers.
Things will get worse before they get better, with Harper having to call the police (the male constable is Kinnear with fewer facial prosthetics), and at one point running into a vicar (Kinnear in a wild white wig), who offers solace on the subject of her dead husband, before suggesting that perhaps his demise was somehow her fault.
Men is definitely a horror film — brace yourself for the film's final 10 minutes, which get intensely body-horror-freaky — but it's also a story about trauma and, if that weren't enough, an examination of the ways that women can feel belittled, unseen or ignored in a world of men. (A scene in the local pub, all the customers as well as the barkeep played by you-know-who, presents a perfect microcosm of this notion.)
Buckley is superb in her role, a confident woman made fragile by her recent loss, the details of which are revealed in a steady narrative drip, with one specific left purposefully unknown.
And Kinnear, though mostly existing as a series of male caricatures, nevertheless provides some three-dimensionality to his one-man cast. And yes, you can engage with Men on a metaphorical level, pondering the inclusion of Lesley Duncan's 1969 hit Love Song in a prominent place on the soundtrack, or the quotation from Ulysses and the Siren, a poem by a contemporary of Shakespeare that ends: “For beauty hath created been t'undo or be undone.”
Or, you know, just sit on the edge of your seat and let the chills wash over you. Far be it from this man to tell you how to enjoy it.