Harper Marlowe, the protagonist in Alex Garland’s astounding third feature, Men, has one of those names that conjures up an array of literary possibility. Could she be part Harper Lee, observing friends and neighbours in a small community with all their absurdities and prejudices? Is Harper unwittingly caught up in her own uncanny version of To Kill a Mockingbird, herself the centre of a bigoted witch hunt? Or helping Truman Capote research In Cold Blood, investigating horrific crimes, and placing herself at the centre of this macabre story? Like the film, Harper is asking lots of questions.
What about the Marlowe surname? Is she Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe? A private investigator uncovering an all-consuming conspiracy in a cosy English village. She certainly has the overcoat for it, beautifully tailored, an amalgamation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Who circa Tom Baker. Or is she the atheist spy, playwright and member of The School of Night, Christopher Marlowe? The Marlowe that wrote about overreaching men, their abject cruelty, and the bloodshed that cruelty unleashes.
Our Harper escapes her abusive husband James and retreats to the idyllic village of Cotson to rent a spacious manor house from Geoffrey, a well-meaning-but-patronising Fast Show character. We’re reminded of Virginia Woolf writing in Orlando, “As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.” The countryside has long been the retreat the urban intelligentsia has sought after trauma and tragedy, whether the countryside ever wanted that honour is certainly open for speculation – especially in this film. The luminous greens captivate Harper under their spell immediately and that all-too-familiar crunch of the forbidden fruit dooms her to relentless torment by men in the village.
Garland’s steady pacing increases the sense of creeping dread inches at a time. The seemingly vast spaces and never-ending nooks and crannies of the manor house act as a reverse Tardis, walls closing in like a Dennis Wheatley novel or the folk horror of Nigel Kneale. Harper’s good manners and rationality are challenged and mocked by a series of men who want to expunge her presence from their quaint corner of 1950s Brexit fantasyland. Whether in the form of a naked stalker, a policeman, a priest, a spoilt Jacob Rees-Mogg of a boy, a barman, or Geoffrey himself, the men have the same countenance, never commented on, or recognised by Harper once in her nightmare. All these men are expertly played Rory Kinnear.
We’re not even sure if her friend Riley, obscured by a bad signal on her iPhone, has the same lineage as these men, or are we just imagining it as we develop an ever-increasing paranoia before Harper’s own? Why doesn’t Harper acknowledge that these men are all the same? Are they representative of the wider patriarchy, an acknowledgement of long-repressed trauma? Are they her father, brother, teacher, ages of man sent to test her? Is this how she sees and judges all men? Or are all these men the same and Harper doesn’t realise it?
Are these men that stupid? That despicable? That ridiculous?
In all of Garland’s films he has no easy answers to give, but then again neither does the human condition. Harper confronts each misogynistic test with exasperated dignity, the failure of the police to make sure her stalker is detained, the priest blaming women for the pathetic vindictiveness of men, or the boy spurned saving up all his spite and loathing for a future incel rage. The absurdity and fear are palpable, but so is the wry amusement and sheer disbelief Jessie Buckley arms Harper with. Are these men that stupid? That despicable? That ridiculous?
And then the lights go out.
For the outrageous climax we are in Cronenberg, Brian Yuzna, Hieronymus Bosch territory, body horror of the most extreme kind. The screen is awash with fluid and gaping chasms. Harper is bombarded with monstrosity after monstrosity, obscenity built upon further obscenity until we are overwhelmed and then numb, all emotion drained until only pity (or is it disdain?) remains. “What do you want from me?” Harper asks one of the marauding forms. The audience should be asking Garland the same question.