Can't quite reach past the edge

I'm generally an Alex Garland fan. All of his films have a very distinct visual style, embodied by sharp contrast in lighting, vivid colors, closing shots on his main characters, and ethereal imagery. He's also fond of moody and loud scores that often dictate the pace of the visuals, rather than simply accompanying them. That's all very interesting stuff and I'm glad to watch it most of the time. His writing, however, can often fall short of what he seems to be setting up. His best work, by far, is Ex Machina. Every work of his I've seen since has shown some refinements of his technique (and, perhaps, bigger budgets to play with) but hasn't really approached that level of cerebral storytelling and seems to fail somewhere in the third act that makes you think the film is running a bit long for what it's trying to say. Men is no different.

From the very beginning, we're aware that this is going to be a psychological thriller/horror film even if, for some reason, you weren't aware of that going into it, given trailers, reviews and, y'know, Alex Garland as writer and director. But the scene is set right away that our lead character, Harper (Jessie Buckley) has faced some trauma at home and has decided to escape it in the English countryside with AirBnB owner, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear.) Along the way, she also meets an insipid and disingenuous local vicar (Rory Kinnear), a demented parochial schoolboy (Rory Kinnear), a disinterested cop (Rory Kinnear), and a devotee of The Green Man (Rory Kinnear.) The first three could easily be examples of the men in Harper's life that either won't help her, would make her situation worse, or would make it so that she'd never be willing to escape the roles that society would impose upon her. All of that plays right into the guilt trip and shifting of blame that she was attempting to escape in the situation with her husband, James (Paapa Essiedu.) But all of that seems to be (ahem) rooted in the underpinning provided by The Green Man; an ancient English/Celtic symbol of fertility and rebirth and that's where the story kind of goes awry. I guess it's all well and good to have presented this as something of an eternal problem in that men will keep seeing women as an object of desire or as simply an object to be claimed and used, no matter how many changes they affect or how many different versions of them there may be in society. But did we need the Celtic imagery to deliver that message?

This was part of my disaffectation with Annihilation, in that it was simply The Colour Out of Space with a loftier presentation. Instead of dropping into someone's well and disturbing a family, it occupied a beach and became a national security crisis. So, here we have one woman's trauma and problem with the opposite sex that is revealed to be a larger issue (it is) that is conveyed in a spiritual and mystical story (OK) but then gets overshadowed by a mythical theme that maybe didn't really need to be there...? I mean, sure, I guess it did if you're still trying to wrap up the loose ends of True Detective, season 1, but I think we've moved on by now. I would've been content just to see some weird stuff happening without any of the Celtic imagery being present at all. We'd already gotten a lot of it with the screaming creature at the end of the tunnel running at Harper (which seemed pretty clearly to be a mirror image) and the anguished face interrupting the FaceTime calls with her friend, Riley (Gayle Rankin) so we know that some spooky stuff is happening. Did it have to be the ancient fertility god which gave an excuse to use the creature effects reminiscent of John Carpenter's The Thing (which is apparently being re-released... Hey! Everything old is new again! It really is constant rebirth! ... Save me, jeebus.)

Don't get me wrong. It's not a bad film in the same way that Annihilation isn't a bad film. They're just not great ones. Again, the visual style is entrancing all on its own and both Buckley and Kinnear do some great stuff. Harper is shown as a woman who's clearly freaked out by what's happening, but also determined enough to take charge of her circumstances and begin to push back against what's happening to her, which is emblematic of the trauma with which this story began. Kinnear is weird in all of his roles (socially awkward landlord, sleazy minister, perverted schoolboy, diffident cop) but weird in a different way for each one and sells them all, which shows a really remarkable level of versatility. I felt certain that I'd seen him in something other than just his bit parts in the recent Bond films but can't recall anything and now I want to see him in something more. Guess I should watch Our Flag Means Death. But this film sold me on the cast's acting chops, not its own story. And that's why I opened by talking mostly about technique. Garland is a great director and, in that way, a great storyteller. He just doesn't seem to have great stories to exercise that ability upon. Is it worth the two hours? It's not "unworth" it, but I'm still kind of waiting for a payoff that doesn't make me feel like it should've come about 15 minutes faster.