A film certain to spark plenty of strong feelings
Like the previous films he’s directed — 2014’s “Ex Machina” and 2018’s “Annihilation” — Alex Garland’s new folk-horror film “Men” has a lot going on underneath the surface: themes of gender and toxic masculinity, ancient signs and symbols, literary references to everything from the Bible to Yeats.
But don’t expect Garland to unpack it all for you. The last thing he wants to do is mansplain “Men.”
“I’m sure there will be a range of opinions and a range of responses to the film,” the British writer-director said recently over Zoom. “I see a group of people who make a film as, in some small way, being participants in a conversation. The film is just a space to turn things over in one’s head. What is front and centre is not what you’re thinking about but what you’re feeling.”
On that score, “Men,” which arrived in theatres Friday on a wave of generally strong reviews, is certain to spark plenty of strong feelings.
Jessie Buckley stars in the A24 release as a woman named Harper who retreats to a picturesque English cottage following the death (whether by accident or suicide is unclear) of her estranged husband (Paapa Essiedu). Seeking solace in the tranquil, bucolic countryside, Harper finds herself terrorized and gaslit by a series of men, including a naked stalker, a creepy vicar and a local police officer — all of them played by actor Rory Kinnear.
A gender-inflected psychological thriller with echoes of such classics as “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Men” seems tailor-made for the #MeToo era, its very title a kind of blunt provocation amid the fiery debates over sexual harassment, misogyny and rape culture.
But Garland says the film actually predates the #MeToo movement, continuing a preoccupation with dynamics of power and sexuality between men and women that has run through all of his work — if not all of human history.
“I’ve been working on a version of the script for about 15 years,” said Garland, 51. “Those concepts way predate MeToo. MeToo was like a sudden intense focusing of attention on something. But it wasn’t a new thing. It was an old thing, like centuries or millennia old.”
Though he is loathe to tell people how to interpret “Men,” Garland does hope that the film sparks a debate over what exactly it is saying — or not saying — about some of the most hot-button issues fuelling the current culture wars.
“As much as possible, I’m not going to get involved in polarized hysteria,” he said. “That polarized hysteria can make everyone else shut up because they’re too afraid, and I don’t want to be part of that. There’s a requirement for all of us to be thoughtful and show care when stepping into subject matters with these kinds of sensitivities. But that shouldn’t prevent one from making a strong statement.”