Men (2022)

 My composting* review of Alex Garland's Men. Spoilers do follow.

Men (2022) is something else. I like it better than Annihilation but not as much as Ex Machina. (I like Devs best of all Garland's work, but I'm only ranking movies for the purpose of this post.)

Looking at reviews/explainers, I am agog at how hard some dudes missed the point, which is pretty hilarious. I could only tolerate one of those guys but the general vibe from them seems to be "ugh we know misogyny = bad already, did you make a whole movie just to beat men over the head with it???" and of course the answer is "no but you got so pissy at the mere inclusion of it in the film you literally missed what it's about". 

I often feel like I just don't see enough of Rory Kinnear and now... well. Now I have seen enough of Rory Kinnear. 

The final act is unfuckinghinged. I almost wanted to clap for everyone but I was still pretty stiff with "wtf did I just witness" feelings.

Overall very creepy. Like super-skin-crawly creepy sometimes, but not scary. The boy with the dolly mask and the dead raven was an amazing couple of minutes. Plenty of scenes where Garland paints with film and the score weaves worlds with sound. When it gets grisly it goes bananas

I felt like I could see most of it coming, so I don't know if it was meant to be telegraphing that clearly or it just landed right for me, but even with that I did not expect the skin-crawly body horror that just kept going, until honestly I was giggling and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent? Also I don't know if everyone knows about Sheela na gig and the Green Man so maybe I went a different direction from some of the audience.

I think that to her all the men were physical manifestations of the overwhelming grief and trauma she was just beginning to examine, but the reality was that there's an entity there that is looking for its opposite cohort and decided she would do, and so the finale where it is perpetually giving birth to itself was both the Green Man's frustration at being thwarted by her refusal to acquiesce and a living metaphor for the grieving process, where picking at one hurt can reveal another and another, traumas all the way down. Also I think by giving in to her rage at all these Men avatars, she was able to let herself live with the rage she felt at her husband. Anger at a dead loved one can be amazingly destructive and is hard to validate for oneself in light of all the other emotions that you're "supposed to be" feeling. 

Overall I liked it, and I think it merits a rewatch now that some friends have weighed in on their interpretations.