Men: The Movie (2022)

Introduction

I don’t usually do scary movies. I haven’t the stomach or the brain for it. I get scared, really scared. I’m prone to nightmares without someone else’s gory imagery running through my head. I don’t see the point in horror.

However, I love the cinema. I love the warm, comfy seats, the all-encompassing screen, the invitation to my imagination to be swamped. I’m making the most of the cinema, post-covid and post- full-time working. A regular treat of mine, is to take in an empty afternoon screening of a non-mainstream film.

I’m not looking for a super-hero. I’m not looking for an action movie. I’m looking for heart and soul, quirkiness, unpredictability, something strange and different about the human condition. And that is how I found myself watching Men, despite it being billed as a horror movie. I settled in and prepared myself to be scared.

Men

Men is billed as a horror movie. It charts the story of Harper (played by Jessie Buckley), who following a personal tragedy needs space to recuperate. She finds a ‘dream’ country house to be alone with her thoughts. The ‘dream’ setting is remote and rural, beautiful but disorientating. I use quotes for ‘dream’ because the movie provides the blurred, layered imagery of a dream, with a reverberating choral soundscape. It plays with what is real and what is imagined. The English countryside is a character of its own: green, fertile, an ongoing cycle of life and death with decayed industrial markings.

We are invited into Harper’s traumatic memories through flashbacks, physically echoed in the present.

And then, there are the men. In the village, Harper has a range of encounters with men that become representative of the strait jacket of masculinity. She is faced with ineptitude, condescension, aggression, lust and dismissal.

All the men are played by the same actor (Rory Kinnear). He is the landlord, a naked stalker, the police officer, the publican, the foul-mouthed school boy, the lecherous vicar and the aggressive local. The differences are dextrously demonstrated.

Harper, it would seem is sane. Traumatised and worn out, but still able to stand her ground. She refuses to play any part in appeasing poor behaviour. She is mentally robust for one living in such an insane world.

The film had gore and threat, but didn’t provide the scares and jumps I was expecting from the billing. The issue of what was real and what was a dream meant that I didn’t invest in the action as reality. After all, it made no sense that Harper never questioned the similarity of the men in the village. And in the end, the message was heavy-handed – generation of men after generation of men produce different varieties of the same limitations and wounds, presented as one man giving a painful gory birth to the next.

Harper in the end, just sits back and watches complacently as the men keep coming.

One Image

That’s not to say it didn’t have any resonance for me. There was one image. A hand coming through the letter box. The hand was held out, imploring, seeking assistance. Despite misgivings, Harper found herself reaching for it, hoping to offer it some comfort, to stop the attack. Of course, her hand is grabbed. She would be trapped. Except she had prepared for this eventuality. She had a weapon and she struck.

I was at a school disco circa 1978. I would have been 8 or 9. Darryl was dancing with my best friend, Pippa. She didn’t look happy. He had her by her wrists. He wouldn’t let go. I went to help. His grip was strong. The only way I could free her, was to let him take my wrists instead, which he did. He held them so tight it hurt. He shouted over to a class mate: “Look, Paolo, I’m dancing with Robbins.” Paolo was a would-be suitor of mine. The Sunday before he had spent hours phoning my house until my Dad had shouted at him to stop.

I was 8 or 9 and I had already learned that you do not take the imploring hand of a male suitor unless you are armed and ready.