I was surprised to find all these reviews panning the movie, and Garland fans especially disliking it. It seems like many of you are thinking that it's preachy or maybe "Woke", but I didn't think so.
I could be wrong, but here's what I thought about the movie and why I don't think that it was preachy. (Spoilers Below)
I thought that that Harper seeing the same man (Rory Kinnear's Geoffrey) everywhere, as she tries to get over, not the loss of her husband exactly, but the relationship itself, in particular his toxicity and gaslighting, was mostly, if not completely, psychological. She is seeing all men as toxic and manifesting the same toxic traits as her dead ex-husband. All different facets of toxic masculinity (disgusted, as I am, to write those two words together) : the caretaker (Geoffrey) is chauvinistic; the boy is kind of youthfully, spitefully misogynistic; the preacher guilts her about her role in her ex-husbands death; the cop doesn't seem to take the threat of the nude/Adam one seriously.
Something else I noticed before seeing the movie is that, the two main characters Harper and Geoffrey/Men, have very similar faces/facial structure. And I was actually semi-worried that this movie would be something preachy about the Trans movement because of it. But I think that because the men, look like they could be (albeit usually older) male versions of Harper is evidence that that she is superimposing projections onto all the males she encounters on her getaway/vacation. And the climax of the movie is her is all the toxic traits of the men birthing each other, ending with her ex-husband who, when Harper asks, tells her the core/heart of his toxicity, the need to be loved and terrible things such a understandable vulnerability can lead you to do in a relationship, especially a doomed one. A trait which in my mind isn't inherently masculine, and can be found equally in "Toxic Masculinity" and "Toxic Femininity" In my mind, this movie could have been just functional, called "WOMEN" and had the roles completely gender swapped, and still told a similar story, even if some of the inherent danger and terror could be lost.
Anyway... I don't claim to understand everything about this movie, or that any one person, save Alex himself, has the "correct" or complete interpretation of the movie, as Garland himself says he wants people to read into the movie, and put some of themselves into their interpretation.
But I felt the need to stick up for this movie, because I think it's being misunderstood in the light of the zeitgeist of "wokeness" that taints our current view of nearly all movies. Alex has said that the script for this movie has been in his drawer for about 15 years, being dusted off and revised every now and again until he got the chance to make it. So I would be careful to judge it be the standards of today. I don't think that it is demonizing of Men or masculinity, I think that it is a psychological journey for a woman to overcome the extreme toxicity and gaslighting guilt of her dead significant other. It's worth the price of the ticket, and worth a rewatch, just like all of Garland's work. 8/10 for my first viewing. Willing to revise, probably upward with further viewings, again like all of Garland's work so far.
I could be wrong, but here's what I thought about the movie and why I don't think that it was preachy. (Spoilers Below)
I thought that that Harper seeing the same man (Rory Kinnear's Geoffrey) everywhere, as she tries to get over, not the loss of her husband exactly, but the relationship itself, in particular his toxicity and gaslighting, was mostly, if not completely, psychological. She is seeing all men as toxic and manifesting the same toxic traits as her dead ex-husband. All different facets of toxic masculinity (disgusted, as I am, to write those two words together) : the caretaker (Geoffrey) is chauvinistic; the boy is kind of youthfully, spitefully misogynistic; the preacher guilts her about her role in her ex-husbands death; the cop doesn't seem to take the threat of the nude/Adam one seriously.
Something else I noticed before seeing the movie is that, the two main characters Harper and Geoffrey/Men, have very similar faces/facial structure. And I was actually semi-worried that this movie would be something preachy about the Trans movement because of it. But I think that because the men, look like they could be (albeit usually older) male versions of Harper is evidence that that she is superimposing projections onto all the males she encounters on her getaway/vacation. And the climax of the movie is her is all the toxic traits of the men birthing each other, ending with her ex-husband who, when Harper asks, tells her the core/heart of his toxicity, the need to be loved and terrible things such a understandable vulnerability can lead you to do in a relationship, especially a doomed one. A trait which in my mind isn't inherently masculine, and can be found equally in "Toxic Masculinity" and "Toxic Femininity" In my mind, this movie could have been just functional, called "WOMEN" and had the roles completely gender swapped, and still told a similar story, even if some of the inherent danger and terror could be lost.
Anyway... I don't claim to understand everything about this movie, or that any one person, save Alex himself, has the "correct" or complete interpretation of the movie, as Garland himself says he wants people to read into the movie, and put some of themselves into their interpretation.
But I felt the need to stick up for this movie, because I think it's being misunderstood in the light of the zeitgeist of "wokeness" that taints our current view of nearly all movies. Alex has said that the script for this movie has been in his drawer for about 15 years, being dusted off and revised every now and again until he got the chance to make it. So I would be careful to judge it be the standards of today. I don't think that it is demonizing of Men or masculinity, I think that it is a psychological journey for a woman to overcome the extreme toxicity and gaslighting guilt of her dead significant other. It's worth the price of the ticket, and worth a rewatch, just like all of Garland's work. 8/10 for my first viewing. Willing to revise, probably upward with further viewings, again like all of Garland's work so far.