With little substance and an overwhelming style, Men is easily one of the most disappointing movies of the year so far.
Men is A24’s newest film, Men, follows Harper as she retreats alone to the beautiful English countryside after a personal tragedy where she hopes to find a place to heal. However, someone, or something, from the surrounding woods appears to be stalking her. What begins as simmering dread soon becomes a fully formed nightmare containing her darkest memories and fears.
This film was visually stunning and no one can deny that, but beneath that there isn’t much at all. There is this very prominent layer of feminism and I thought it was actually really well done. Nothing felt forced and the symbolism and imagery was perfectly representative of what the director wanted to express – that is until we get to the end.
I won’t be spoiling anything here but this film started off really, really good. It had these well played out feminist tones with a heartbreaking story. I thought the pacing was very well done with the executions of flashbacks.
On top of that all of the sets were super well done and like I mentioned before, the cinematography was stunning. That was easily the best part of this film but there is again nothing to back it up.
We get these crazy shots and set up with this naked man character, and without spoiling anything, we see this slow build up of this stalker character, using the visuals. But the story gets indulged in itself. It gets so caught up in this entire buildup and peaking the mystery with visuals, that it gets too insane before we can get invested into the story.
I do want to point out that 3 people left my theater in the last 30 minutes of this movie. It got so insane that my theater was either laughing at the movie or, if you were those 3 people, they left.
I could compare the 3rd act of this film to a movie like Malignant, but it made sense in a movie like Malignant because the entire movie was crazy, here it felt so out of place. The story felt so closed and personal that when these absolutely insane things started to happen – I just couldn’t believe it.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
NEXT: The Innocents Movie Review
About Men
In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, Harper retreats alone to the beautiful English countryside, hoping to find a place to heal. However, someone or something from the surrounding woods appears to be stalking her. What begins as simmering dread soon becomes a fully formed nightmare, inhabited by her darkest memories and fears.
