A woman rents a house in the countryside after her husband committed suicide. But after finding a tunnel when she’s out taking a walk, a naked man starts stalking her. Who is this man, and why are the men in the village so weird? And why do they all look the same?
I’m a big fan of Alex Garland, and this time he has made a horror movie that many will call arty-farty. Sometimes I hate arty-farty movies, while other times I love them.
So we understand that something bad has happened in the woman’s life who rents a house to gather her thoughts. The only character she has contact with is the man who has rented her the house. But after a while, she meets other men in the village, and the same actor plays them all. Is the woman going crazy?
I guess this is a movie you have to watch twice because I didn’t understand all of it. The protagonist is feeling guilt after her husband committed suicide since she was leaving him. Her guard is down, even though I didn’t feel that in the first 40 minutes. But after she meets several men and some of them share their thoughts with her, we see that she’s fragile and that she can’t trust men. Are all men alike? Are they all rotten?
Then you wonder if this is a personal nightmare and if she’s locked inside a mental hospital or something. Or maybe she’s in hell? The problem is that her husband made her question men, so you sense that she may be dangerous to men.
There’s a lot to take in. I loved Midsommar (2019), and I felt a small touch of that movie and The Wicker Man (1973) when watching Men. The cinematography is beautiful, and I loved the creepy atmosphere. The ending is completely bonkers. My eyes were glued to the screen, and I was just in heaven. What a crazy ending!
The few actors the movie has are superb, well there are only two leading actors in the movie, and they are great. Rory Kinnear plays all the male characters in the village, which is crazy. He’s so good, and I loved the idea that he played all the male characters in the village.
With Men, Alex Garland has made a movie I will remember for a long time, just like Ex-Machina. I think the movie is too deep for me to completely understand the folklore, symbolism, and some of the dialog. But I dug this movie and the outstanding and weird atmosphere it has. And the crazy ending rocks! So this is a movie I want to watch again.