Review: THE LIGHTHOUSE

Willem Dafoe (this is true) in a speech about
his cooked lobster.

A novice and an old hand travel to a lighthouse on a rock somewhere off the coast of North America. The young man is quickly disabused by the elder of the possibility of him tending the light. Instead, his duties will be menial. The older man takes the opportunity to establish the distribution of power. This will keep happening and each time it does the performance of the pushback will be greater, more flamboyant and harsher. It's a living and it's only for four weeks and he's here now so at worst it's a few stories in the pub down the line.

But it's hard and only gets harder. His chores are difficult and he's given little instruction. Left to himself he finds the eroticism of a carved mermaid he found in his mattress a distraction and even powerful nourishment for his imagination. And on the island with the pushiest seagulls in the seven seas he has a vent for his frustrations. Above him, in the lighthouse gallery, the old wickie keeps an eye, chastising him over dinner for poor work or inviting bad luck by attacking the gulls.

The development of this relationship occupies almost all of the running time and for much of it the thought occurs that like the young man's lumping of his lot we are in for the kind of buddy movie that Samuel Beckett might have imagined. However, we are only given enough to follow as, piece by piece, a genuine narrative arc will appear and be fulfilled. All I'll say of that is that the ending will make sense to you if you have a passing knowledge of Greek mythology. My own is not more than glancing but I did get it and if it is giving you trouble plug a keyword description of what you see in the final shot into Google and you'll see, too.

Robert Eggers shoots in deep monochrome in a frame closer to a square than academy ratio, keeping the action and scenes breathless and claustrophobic. His two strong main cast maintain a near constant wrestle, verbal or physical, and we have so trouble understanding the powerplay. It's important here as without such concrete character establishment we would soon be lost in the increasingly interwoven fantasy images served us. Almost all of these are from the younger man and can render mermaids from the spray or turn the wickie into Poseidon with death ray eyes. Eggers isn't trying for an updated Eraserhead nor the camp of Guy Maddin but something I'll call the A24 universe. What I mean by that is that every significant release from the A24 studio is what with varying degrees of cringe is called elevated horror or, more accurately, horror adjacent by which narratives can veer as close as they like to horror cinema without ever having to commit to the genre. You can see this in Midsommar and It Comes at Night both of which find extra texture and flavour with a pinch of genre. Eggers' own The Witch (which I found disappointing) is happy to stretch into pure genre while still (mostly) keeping its feet on the ground as a gritty period drama.

My initial feeling on leaving the cinema was that Eggers had stuck his point early and indulged himself in too much repetition, restating the conflict between the two men and the puerile depths it could sink to. Enough, already. But letting the ending absorb changed my mind. The younger man reveals a secret while drunk which returns with consequences. His ambition toward the light will also have a payback. When these tiles fall into place we really have seen something extraordinary. However alienating the constant harshness is, the literally dazzling climax will cover all that with balm. And then we get the closing image. And then I think: no, this works.