When's that baby due?

 

Well, well well. I had read some fairly negative reviews of this mildly insane thriller from Ex Machina and Annihilation helmer, Alex Garland. And some reviews that proclaimed it "important" as a feminist "Get Out".

Yeah, it is something. Not sure what, though. Garland is a skilled film-maker, so, as a piece of film craftpersonship "Men" is solid, if not excellent. A perfectly self-contained story, set in a trope-y English country village, with good acting by Jessie Buckley and Penny Dreadful's Rory Kinnear. Its like a good Crème Brule or something.

But, did I want Crème Brule? Or, did I even want desert? The problem with "Men", if there is a problem, is that it appears to be a scathing (withering?) indictment of Toxic Masculinity, perhaps along the lines of the equally insane "Titane" by Julia Ducournau. Or a deconstruction of hetero-normative relations, like the moderately insane, and brilliant, "The Lobster" by Yorgos Lanthimos.

Buckley plays a youngish Londoner who has escaped to the Countryside to mourn (?) the death of her Husband. Said death is told in flashback scenes of increasing depth that attempt to frame the current story, which starts out creepy and just goes downhill from there.

She arrives at an English Country house owned and Airbnb'd by the buck-toothed Jeffrey, played with scenery-chewing relish by Kinnear. As Jeffrey shows our heroine around the home, he seems just a bit too familiar, a bit too awkward and way too toothsome.

The expressionist hair and makeup for Jeffrey pre-sages one of the more harrowing techniques in the film. All of the male characters -- the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker (no really, the bar owner, the priest, the cop, etc.) -- are all played by Kinnear. In order to not make that too obvious, each character has some over the top aspect of their appearance that seems to initially set them apart. With Jeffrey, the teeth. With the Priest, the hair.

This all becomes problematic when she encounters a young punk of a boy that seems to have had Kinnear's face painted on him with CGI. That is either very scary or very hilarious. And how you view that will largely determine how you judge "Men." The Third Reel asks the viewer to believe, in fact, that all of "the men" she has encountered -- and, who all seem to want to kill her -- are actually the same man.

Is this some fever dream as she wrestles with guilt over hubby's death (no spoilers)? Or, do quiet English villages actually feature, many worlds style, multiple versions of the same toxic male, who all want to kill our heroine? These questions, and more, may be fun to ask. Again, depending on your view of Garland's film.