The star of Men is Jessie Buckley, a fireball of an actor who plays a widow renting a remote cottage in the English countryside. She wants to escape the sorrow of her abusive husband’s recent death, but her grief follows and mutates.
Director Alex Garland’s experimental and chaotic Men is a mess of references to the Bible and Greek mythology mixed with undercooked social commentary. There are scenes of almost hypnotic beauty and a shocking, surreal climax that I like to think body horror maestro David Cronenberg would watch and then think, “Well, that’s a bit much.”
Without Buckley’s performance, backed up by creepy shapeshifter Rory Kinnear, Men fails as both metaphor and horror. When it succeeds, it’s an incredibly upsetting nightmare. I saw this movie in a theater full of teens who, at first, giggled at shots of naked middle-aged men and then sat silently once the gore started.