Review: Alex Garland’s 'Men' Looks at the Trauma Inflicted on Women by Men
“This is what you did.”
During an early scene in Men, audiences see Harper (Jesse Buckley) committing the first sin. After arriving at her country retreat, a place where she hopes to distance herself from the past, a small apple tree stands near the gate. Tempted by its fruit, she picks one, assesses it, and in a heightened moment, takes the first bite. The camera cuts to a centered medium close up, the image slows, and the sound of a crisp bite echoes with harsh volume. As if it weren’t evident, writer/director Alex Garland wants you to take note of this moment. His scene clearly references Eve in the Book of Genesis, who, for the unfamiliar, committed the first sin in human history by doing the one thing God told her not to do: eating the forbidden fruit (commonly depicted as an apple in literature). This slight against God exiled both Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, setting human kind on the plighted path of history that has lead us to today.
One misogynistic interpretation of this parable is that women are to blame for all the world’s suffering; had Eve not given in to the temptations of Lucifer, we would theoretically still be living in Eden’s bliss, if the Bible is to be believed. Given the events that follow in Men, Garland wants you to think on this allusion as the film takes form around the blame and guilt assigned to women at the misdeeds of men.
Harper’s torment begins with her ex, whose toxic behavior results in a bleak separation between both parties. Harper’s escape to the countryside is supposed to be a means of moving on, but rarely is trauma jettisoned so easily. During her stay she is greeted by Geoffrey, the acutely awkward (but cheery) host played by Rory Kinnear. His first impression is a lasting one, and it’s a face Harper won’t soon forget. As Jesse walks the neighboring grounds, she encounters locals, all men, who bear the same face as Geoffrey. Though, she doesn’t comment on it, perhaps indicating a subjective view from the camera, it represents a shared trait among all men — that trait being the pervasive behaviors of men within society and the psychological guilt, trauma, and horror these behaviors can cause on women.
In her conversations with these men, a few ask what ails Harper, only to make rude, dismissive, or problematic remarks about her suffering in return. “You didn’t give him a chance to be forgiven,” says a priest nonchalantly in response to hearing how Harper’s ex punched her.“You bitch,” says a boy when Harper turns down his request to play a school game. “This is what you did,” another declares when assessing a physical injury he himself caused.
These interactions eventually take a supernatural element as Garland works in the material and style we’ve come to associate with the director. This is particularly true with Garland’s interest with abstraction. Entire scenes hinge on symbolic and metaphorical images, some of which feel like they exist solely for atmosphere while others work didactically to hit home the film’s thesis. The climatic resolve punctuates the film with an eerie moment of horror, a moment that loosely connects to the film’s initial biblical allusion to the perennial nature of women’s suffering at the hands of men, and leaves the audience with a distressing implication. All these images fall in the crowded space of self-serious trauma horror, a subgenre that appears to be fairly common these days. With regards to Garland’s entry here, Men hovers above the line, if only for a handful of moments that standout.
