Review: Men is a beautifully rendered film, with bright greens and reds flooding the screen to hold you over as it sets up its big plot devices. Jessie Buckley serves as the remarkable buoy of the film, and Rory Kinnear evolves with each passing character.
Now nearly two years removed from its initial release date, Alex Garland’s Men for A24 feels underrated. A body horror home invasion movie featuring one of Hollywood’s best actresses in Jessie Buckley, the film is a shift in tone and themes from Garland’s previous works, transitioning from stories involving anxiety we have about the advancement of technology, to the societal and gender issues that plague our society.
And Men is a movie I refuse to recommend to anyone despite my admiration for it. Alex Garland does not hold back on his visual motifs, opting to display just about every gonzo visual idea he’s had banked for a while. I’m administering a content warning to anyone reading this before making the decision to watch it. It’s gnarly, and the ending has a “grab at your heart” set piece that is surely not going to be for everyone, in fact will likely turn away a vast number of viewers.
There’s also a case to be made that Garland beats around the bush for too long, and that Men doesn’t really start to state its case to grand effect until about the final 20 minutes. I hadn’t seen it since the theater, and I had forgotten how slow the director plays it to start. Jessie Buckley dominates the screentime with simple movements and gestures, and it only works if you pay it the time that it’s asking for.
Buckley captivates as Harper, a woman seeking solace in the English countryside after a devastating personal loss. As she navigates the unsettling beauty of her surroundings, a sense of dread creeps in, fueled by encounters with seemingly ordinary men who all share the same face (played by the chameleon-like Rory Kinnear). This recurring motif becomes a powerful representation of the pervasive nature of male presence and the anxieties women face in everyday interactions.
Men is bombastic in its approach, as if Garland believes the only way to get his message across is by assaulting the senses. The movie garnered some criticism in the time of its release because of the director that’s telling the story, many of whom believed he wasn’t fit to articulate the struggles that women face in a society of vulgar men. But like the title of the movie, that focus ultimately shifts onto the men that criticize and chastise women for circumstances out of their control.
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I bumped on some of the plot points that take place near the end of the film when I saw it for the first time years ago. Kinnear returns to her house and takes the shape of every man that has tormented her throughout the film’s runtime, and Buckley refutes and confronts each of them and their prejudices, from economic reasons to age to religion – it really runs the gamut. The section of the film felt a bit too obvious and surface level the first time around, but I thought it tied up the loose ends a bit better upon rewatch.
And the ending is surely where the film will either gain or lose supporters. Harper experiences the visual embodiment of her trauma as her relationship to all the men in the film spawn from that of her ex-husband’s. It’s painstakingly put on film in singular fashion, something I’ve never seen in a movie, and I’d imagine I never will again.
Men is a beautifully rendered film, with bright greens and reds flooding the screen to hold you over as it sets up its big plot devices. It strips away many of the elements Alex Garland has leaned on in the past (there’s a noticeable lack of technology at Harper’s disposal throughout) and gets right to the characters and their specific outlooks on life. Jessie Buckley serves as the remarkable buoy of the film, and Rory Kinnear evolves with each passing character. I think we all underestimated this one in 2022, as it’s a really intense and understandably unnerving accomplishment.
Watch Men on Paramount+ with Showtime and VOD here
Men Cast and Credits
Cast
Jessie Buckley as Harper
Rory Kinnear as Geoffrey (and Many, Many Others)
Paapa Essiedu as James
Gayle Rankin as Reilly
Crew
Director: Alex Garland
Writer: Alex Garland
Cinematography: Rob Hardy
Editor: Jake Roberts
Composers: Geoff Barrow, Ben Salisbury
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