Men

 Year:  2022

Director:  Alex Garland

Screenplay:  Alex Garland

Starring:  Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Gayle Rankin

Running Time:  100 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Following the apparent suicide of her abusive husband (Essiedu), Harper Marlowe (Buckley) takes a two week break from her home in London, renting a holiday home in the isolated village of Cotson.  During a long walk in the country, Harper is horrified by a vision of a naked hairless man, who appears to follow her home.  Walking around the village, Harper is deeply disturbed by the creepy, toxic men that she encounters (all of whom are played by Kinnear).

This is a deeply strange, but oddly effective slice of folk horror, a subgenre of horror films which use folklore and tradition, particularly in a rural, isolated landscape.  Jessie Buckley, who is one of the best actors working at the moment, gives a fantastic performance as the tormented Harper, and Rory Kinnear is fantastic as multiple men, all of whom display various types of toxic masculinity, and the truly disturbing image of Kinnear's face superimposed on a schoolboy, who frequently wears a Marilyn Monroe mask.  The death of Harper's husband, and the events leading up to it, are shown piece by piece in flashback, lit in a warm, orange, late-evening light, while the scenes in the country are all bright greens and grey stones.  the film uses a lot of religious and pagan imagery, particular the Green Man (a face surrounded by leaves and vegetation).  For the most part, this is a strange, effective slow-burner, however in the last act, the film seems to go in for more conventional horror movie territory, before ending in genuinely nightmarish, surreal imagery.  I enjoyed the film, even though I am not sure I really understood everything that was happening in it.  This is a film that is worth your time, a powerful and pertinent look at disturbing and problematic male behaviour, particularly against women, and some of the most memorable, bizarre imagery to be seen in a long time.  

 Jessie Buckley in Men