By: Andrew Wing

Men is a 2022 British folk horror film written and directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation). It stars Jessie Buckley (I’m Thinking of Ending Things, The Lost Daughter) as a widowed woman who travels on holiday to a countryside village but becomes disturbed and tormented by the strange men in the village, all portrayed by Rory Kinnear (James Bond films, The Imitation Game).

The film was released in the United States on May 20, 2022, by A24 and in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2022, by Entertainment Film Distributors.

THE GOOD

News flash, but being the crazy sci-fi enthusiast I am, I absolutely love Alex Garland! Ex Machina is one of my favorite films from the past decade, and Annihilation is one of the most underrated movies from the past five years. Anyways, I still need to watch the FX miniseries Devs which he wrote and directed, but once I heard about Men and saw the trailer, I was freaking amped. However, it did get some pretty mixed reviews once it was released in May of last year, but while that may turn some people off from checking a movie out, a highly divisive movie only makes me more eager to check it out, and check it out I did! So what was Men? Was it another sci-fi classic from Garland? Or was it a step down for him? Keep reading to find out!

I mean, it was honestly both if you’re asking me. While Men was nowhere near the likes of Ex Machina and Annihilation, because well those were some of the best sci-fi movies of the past decade, I do think Men does have a chance to be one of those cult classic movies years from now. Why? For starters, like the rest of his movies, the visual storytelling is really strong here from Garland. A lot of the imagery in the film is really striking, and the rest of his filmmaking here was really good I thought. There are some drawn-out silent sequences where we just see the main character, Harper, walking throughout the forest, and because of how Garland decided to shoot those, we actually come away learning a lot about the character. I am just such a big fan of Garland, and I am really looking forward to his next film, Civil War which should hopefully be coming out later this year.

So I watched the movie with my Mom, and I told her going in that Jessie Buckley might be my favorite current actress, and after having watched the movie, I can say that she is. She was just great in this film throughout and thought she was perfectly cast. She was able to convey so many emotions for her character of Harper when she was feeling refreshed or when she was feeling unsettled, which was a lot to say the least. She was phenomenal when it came to showing Harper’s trauma, but at the same time she was able to show the resiliency of her too. All in all, I love Jessie Buckley so I might be biased, but this was another really good performance from her.

As good as Jessie Buckley was, the best performance might’ve belonged to Rory Kinnear. And I should call it performances because he literally plays like ten different characters in this film. All of his roles were good, but my favorite was hands down Geoffrey, the owner of the holiday house Harper rents, and I would love for him to have his own sequel/prequel movie or miniseries but that’ll never happen. Seriously though, his character was inviting but also jittery and creepy and Kinnear should’ve honestly got an Oscar nomination because he was unbelievable in Men, and he made a fan out of me!

I know I already touched on Garland’s visual storytelling, but to continue with the visuals of Men, the movie just looks incredible. The cinematography from Rob Hardy was thoroughly gorgeous. All of the colors were so vibrant, so much so that I was asking myself if grass can really be that green. But as for some of the other technical elements of Men, I loved the score from Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow and I thought it was really cool how they intertwined Jessie Buckley’s own vocals into their unsettling score.

THE BAD

Alright, when it comes to the bad, there is only one thing I want to talk about, and that is the ending. There’s no other way to say it, the ending to this movie was just bonkers. I’m pretty sure my mom gagged about two or three times during the last ten to fifteen minutes of the film because it’s really gross and honestly pretty disgusting so just a heads up, be prepared for some body horror.

To continue with the ending, I was just confused by the film’s message and the narrative approach as a whole. I mean the movie is called “Men”, and while it might just be me oversimplifying things, it felt like Garland just wanted us to know that men are bad. I’m sure there was a broader purpose to the film that I could better understand on a second watch, but I just wanted something more from the film’s conclusion that wasn’t just Alex Garland telling us that he supports women.

THE VERDICT

While it doesn’t reach the same heights as his first two films because of the overall messaging, Alex Garland’s Men is still a very interesting British folk horror film that has undoubtedly the craziest ending of anything 2022 had to offer.

As crazy as it was, I did really like the movie overall. I loved the visuals, the music was awesome, and I was very impressed by the performances of both Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear.