MEN (Alex Garland)

Started by polkablues, February 10, 2022, 12:19:17 AM

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polkablues



Alex Garland, Jessie Buckley, A24. Just take my money and wreck me.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Jeremy Blackman



Full trailer dropped. It's... a lot. Definitely some spoilers.

polkablues

Yes to everything going on here.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Yes

This was humiliating

The complete lack of awareness despite the good intentions to craft a film about women trapped by the male gaze..yet the female character is hardly defined, certainly not outside of masculine perspective. Mostly a nothing film with occasionally freakish imagery, some stark digital work eliminating background focus

WorldForgot

Aw, man! I read your letterboxd review, too, and my expectations are now lowered. Probably for the best. Annihilation was really good - and I also enjoyed Devs. But Devs had a lot more runtime to build out its characters. From your perspective on it, seems like this one is way too blunt for its own good.

Yes

It is just too tepidly explicit in its already apparent conceit to offer much depth and investment. All rather pedantic in its hollow politics and themes regarding the inescapable weight of male insecurity that haunts women. Some legit moments of insidious tension release in gruesome and gnarly fashion, but the last act aims for inspired gonzo mania the previous 90 minutes are too trite and uninspired to establish and therefore earn

I'd be more onboard if it wasn't so cold-blooded and autopilot, congratulating itself after every nifty setpiece or gesture towards profundity because like I said, there's truly some bracing digital augmentation and enveloping sound work going on that makes the occasional set-piece or jump scare pop

Jeremy Blackman

Finally caught up with this movie and loved it! I usually agree with @Yes but couldn't disagree more in this case. I count mother! as one of my top 5 favorite films, so I'm not averse to sledgehammer metaphors if they're done beautifully and strangely enough, which I think is definitely the case here.

Mild spoilers:

I've heard widespread criticism of the final act, but that's actually where everything clicked for me. I wouldn't describe it as "gonzo mania" at all. The most hard-hitting scenes in the last half hour are actually slow and confident in a way that completely works for me.

The premise has a baked-in risk of coming off as didactic, but the message does not resemble anything I recognize as a cliche or established trope. (The apple metaphor is a red herring imo.) Let's be honest, that final sequence was one of the wildest things you will ever see. Whether it's too thematically explicit was so far from my concerns. And I actually clapped after the final shot.