In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, Harper retreats alone to the beautiful English countryside, hoping to find a place to heal. But someone — or something — from the surrounding woods appears to be stalking her, and what begins as simmering dread becomes a fully-formed nightmare, inhabited by her darkest memories and fears.
- Released: 2022-05-20
- Runtime: 100 minutes
- Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
- Stars: Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Gayle Rankin, Sarah Twomey, Zak Rothera-Oxley, Sonoya Mizuno
- Director: Alex Garland
Comments
- anthonymontesihr - 10 June 2024
My eyes got harassed !
The movie had a good potential and concept but the whole movies idea was kind of lame, yes it gave you what the movie is expected to be, Creepy, Twisted, and to keep you on the edge of your seat but it could have been so much better if it wasn't a metaphor,
The acting is great The atmosphere perfect The story is has some parts good but not the whole movie,
If you feel like watching a creepy movie and to just watch something once and expect something moderate this is the movie for you
I just wish it had a better meaning a better ending and a better way of putting things into the movie, it's sometimes hard to like a movie we're it's a metaphor. - danapotthoff-35948 - 5 May 2024
Rising tension with a raw end
I've read a few comments before watching and they really confused me. Without having a clue what to expact, it was difficult to classify all these different perspectives.
For me the movie was great and artful implemented - although (or even because) of the rough scenes at the end.
The thrill is rising in a constant and good way and the situations develop from natural fear scenes to bizarre and abstract trauma expressions according to the past of the protagonist.
In the end you don't know what's true or what's going on in the woman's head. The raw ending scenes may be too raw and over the top for some, but I like such unusual and metaphorical expressions when films are used as a form of art. - Enix4 - 21 April 2024
Deeply Unsettling
Generally, I'm not a fan of cinema as metaphor (got halfway through the mess that was 'Mother!', spotted the metaphor and switched off), but this was so well done that I couldn't look away.
Which says a lot considering there's a couple of scenes in there that ain't for the squeamish. I'd recommend this not just for the deep sense of unease it stirs up (again and again) and the disturbing shots scattered throughout, but also the setting, the effective use of music, the performances and the metaphor itself. Visceral, affecting and deeply unsettling.
Anyone looking for run-of-the-mill horror might do better to avoid this one, but if you're in the mood for something with a little more substance beneath the surface give it a watch. At the least you'll be entertained. - cathyisa - 7 January 2023
What the heck did i just watch?!
I have seen all movies by this director and I don't quite get what he is telling. Every one of his movies has left me perplexed and grossed out. I don't understand his language and don't quite get what all the fuss is about. I see his talent and the tales he tells, but I wonder about the form and visuals.
My boyfriend had his mind blown out by this movie and understood it more viscerally than I. He was surprised and grossed out, but it made an impact. For me, as with Annihilation, it was a really beautifully shot movie but the characters and the situations were somewhat superficial. I will watch Garland's future work because I like being put out of my comfort zone. - njohnsonmoviereviews - 2 January 2023
A Deep and Sensitive Exploration of the Evolutionary Roots of Male/Female Conflict
The title of this film is perhaps a misnomer, as it isn't exactly focused on men. Rather, it's focused on man's relationship with women, from its evolutionary beginning all the way to the modern man. Though the film arguably borrows from Surrealist elements (bordering on Absurdism at some points), its message is actually rather straightforward, focusing on the fact that modern man still has not evolved past his primal ancestors deep-seated need for s*x, aggression, and the need to be loved. More importantly though, the film shows how man's struggle negatively affects women, ranging from white-knighting and treating her as a villain for setting boundaries, all the way to victim blaming and physical and emotional abuse. The film misses no details, such as a woman simply wanting to be left alone in her house but continuously being followed, being dismissed by other women, and even having to lie about herself when a strange yet well-intentioned man is overly curious about her. The resulting film is so profoundly empathetic towards women, portraying the horrors they go through every day at the hands of men. Yet it also explains why man is the way he is, and how he evolved increasingly sophisticated techniques to achieve his most primal desire. Final consensus - 9/10 - An incredibly empathetic and thoughtful film on the horrors women face everyday at the hands of men. - tchitouniaram - 28 December 2022
That
Is one brilliant film in many ways ! Acting , imagination , score , story , anguish ... Stunning cinematography ! Seems to me , that this film just screaming its own close relation to the one of the best films ever made :"Antichrist", even tough , for me, there is no one , who could come close to Lars von Trier, this particular film , definitely , made a good try! Highly recommended!
Is one brilliant film in many ways ! Acting , imagination , score , story , anguish ... Stunning cinematography ! Seems to me , that this film just screaming its own close relation to the one of the best films ever made :"Antichrist", even tough , for me, there is no one , who could come close to Lars von Trier, this particular film , definitely , made a good try! Highly recommended! - jp_91 - 16 December 2022
Amazing!
"Men" is a visual delight whose cinematography supported by incredible filming locations achieve a poetic charm. The art direction also has a strong visual effect, with some obvious influences from Argento's early work. The script is complex, revolving around psychological horror from a folk horror perspective and even with hints of body horror, achieving quite disturbing gore scenes, in addition to the fact that the special effects are of sublime quality. The plot of the film takes its form in the mythology of the Green Man as a metaphor for a toxic man who does not change, likewise has influences of female emancipation. Jessie Buckley gives a great dramatic performance especially in the suspenseful scenes and Rory Kinnear is multifaceted giving one of the best performances of the year. A current classic. - Ramnagel - 13 November 2022
What REALLY Happened...
This is my take on the movie's actual events, that is, what really happened. As we watch the movie through the eyes of a traumatised and psychologically battered and fractured "unreliable narrator," the way she experienced things is largely the way the audience has to see it and it seems many viewers were confused by this technique. The movie is simply a story of a traumatised woman being attacked in the country by a naked weirdo, not getting police protection, and having to survive a second attack by the same lunatic who is intent on killing her.
So. A woman misused by her husband witnesses his horrible death by suicide or probably accident. It seems likely, given the nature of the movie, that he was trying to gain entry into the flat again via the balcony to do her harm or even kill her, when he fell and died, leaving a horribly mutilated corpse that, in her traumatised state of shock, she goes to look at from up close. She retreats to the country to recuperate. But she feels mistreated and misunderstood by all the men she meets.
Some events relatively early in the movie indicate she is not well and partial to seeing and imagining things, like unconsciously viewing all men as the same, people suddenly flashing out of existence. The ending climaxes with her psychotic break or episode.
The trick is to separate her fantasies and fears from reality since we are watching through her eyes. And the following is what I am almost certain is real and what is her psychotic take on things.
What is real is that a naked crazy guy chases her and follows her from the woods and tries to break into the house to get to her. The male cop is unsympathetic. The perpetrator is released and follows her home again that evening. She is now primed by previous and recent events for losing her mind completely, and that she does when the naked weirdo appears again trying to break in and attack her.
But by this time she is completely loony tunes and she experiences his attack as an extended attack by the men in the village that freaked her out earlier, one after the other.
She manages to escape after stabbing the naked lunatic in the imagined form of the priest and attempts to flee in her car but by accident knocks over the lunatic who has made it to the road somehow. He now takes the form in her mind of her landlord. The lunatic survives and manages to drag her from the car, get in, and race off. She is bewildered but suddenly galvanised into action again when he drives back and attempts to run her over. But he crashes just as she manages to slip through a sturdy stone gate. He manages to get himself out of the car and come after her yet again.
Now he is at death's door and as he drags himself towards her, in her mind, he successively dies and gives birth to various incarnations of all the men in the village who traumatised her. They are all getting their just deserts. In reality the crazy naked attacker is dying and can only drag his stabbed and broken body in fits and spurts of supreme effort. Her psychosis is heavily dependent on her experience of all these men essentially being the same dangerous, violent individual, engendered by the real nutcase who originally kicked things off and ending with her accusing dead husband appearing as the final form of her attacker as he bleeds out and dies next to her on the couch.
The naked lunatic is the only man in the movie who can be a real character that would actually attempt to kill her. Nobody else has motive. The "horror" is the attack as seen in the mind of our mentally traumatised and unreliable narrator.
The final scene shows her pregnant friend arriving. Everything in this scene is reliable because we see it through the eyes of her friend. The car is there, crashed by the naked attacker while trying to run her over. The blood trail into the house shows where he dragged himself after the crash and finally succumbed to his wounds without her even having to resort to using the axe.
Her smile to her friend at the end hopefully signifies her catharsis through justifiably defending herself and working through her issues during her hallucinatory psychotic episode. In any case, the movie is clear that men are to blame for her losing her mind earlier and shows that she only ever acted in self-defence and was a blameless victim constantly victimised by Men. It is significant that the title MEN appears at the end of the movie when all the horrors and violence depicted are fresh and immediate in the viewer's mind's-eye.
This movie was trying to say something about the real world but one could perhaps enjoy it as a supernatural gore-fest if prepared to not think too deeply about it. The movie makes no sense and is pointless taken as supernatural horror, though.
So, it is up to the viewer to realise that it was all real and not supernatural, had a point about men vs women in real life, and used an unreliable narrator's viewpoint to depict for the viewer what horrors she felt and hallucinated, so that the viewer could sympathise with her and realise fully how terrible men are/can be.
And that, as far as I can make out, is what "really" happened.
P. S. It must be said, Rory Kinnear stole the show with an outstanding performance. - pokehimwithastick - 2 November 2022
I Love That So Many People Don't Get This
It's about misogyny and toxic male violence. It's about how religion is used to create the myth of "original sin" to blame all toxic male behaviour on women. She literally eats the forbidden fruit. It's about how men perpetuate this myth and pass it on to one another, each generation giving birth to the next toxic male. It's about women challenging that myth and rejecting it.
Yes, it's highly allegorical. Yes, it is incredibly unsettling.
Haven't you seen any of Alex Garland's work before? That's literally what he does. You're the kind of people who think The Beach is actually about a beach.
