Director
Written and directed by Alex Garland, Men's plot is superb. It's as simple as Harper's (Jessie Vuckley) going to the countryside to get away from the ghosts of her past. In particular, her abusive ex-boyfriend James, whom she was in the process of divorcing when she committed suicide. This two-week getaway is just what he needs. Or so he thought.
When he arrives, Harper is eating an apple from the tree in the garden. Jeffrey, the host, is shocked and tells him that the fruit is forbidden. Anyway, Harper soon settles down, but finds herself with a series of different men, each lighting her up, each dealing with surface-level nut jobs, and each blaming her for the trauma she's suffered.
Monstrous Men
For the rest of the film, Harper is forced to try to survive these monstrous men. He runs off, an incredulous "...what?!" he repeats. when they turn out to be terrible and back off...until he doesn't.
Without giving too much away, there's a disturbing and shocking scene involving the men in town at the end, which is an incredibly whimsical move to put on screen. I won't spoil it here, but Garland and co. They are so proud of this shot that they repeat the process about FIVE times. And our hero, who is afraid of all this? He just casually stands and watches.
Problem With Men
The problem with Men is that this is one of those movies that thinks it's too deep and flaunts what it's got. Like a peacock strutting around a garden with its feathers upraised, Men strives to dazzle and impress with themes such as "It's bad to hit women and emotionally manipulate people" and "femininity is inherited and passed down from generation to generation." This is so. There is no nuance here; there are no shades of gray to suggest.
Feminist Themes
Given that this film was written and directed by a man who explores feminist themes and ideas, it's almost insulting to see it defined by Harper's trauma. We don't learn anything about this character beyond his past (except that he runs a lot). Instead, we get 100 minutes of a movie that repeatedly hammers away at the screenplay and tries to make it deeper and more thought-provoking than it is.
Disappointing
This is especially disappointing because the opening 40 minutes or so are really, really good. They create a nice atmosphere, add just the right amount of exposition, and manage to send dark shadows through some spine-chilling segments that will have you completely hooked. There is a tunnel and a scene where Harper marvels at the echoes, which are very well done.
But then the movie forgets that, picks up the pace, and then ends abruptly without resolving the conflict. On a purely metaphorical or allegorical level, yes, there is a conclusion for Harper, but in terms of what we see on screen and what we believe with the story, the movie just.
Some of the arguments I've seen now suggest that the shallow and paper-thin characters in this movie were portrayed that way because that's what Harper predicted and believed (forgetting that Harper herself is paper-thin by design). My argument for this is what I say to anyone who defends The Last Jedi or other movies with bad writing. If you have to create your own canon to justify gaps in logic or character nuance, the screenplay isn't doing its job right.
Too Deep
Sure, there will be some people who praise Men for being too deep, but when you really stop and think about it, it's not. It's an oversimplified impression of trauma and grief from a man with nothing to say other than.
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