In the Earth (2021)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

Ben Wheatley is back, baby! After his disastrous attempt at mainstream fare in Rebecca on Netflix, Wheatley returns to the form he has perfected. That's not to say it's perfect, and generally speaking his aesthetic isn't my cuppa, but its peculiarities mark it as canon among the filmmaker's signature works like Kill List and High-Rise. Wheatley movies are seemingly made for my people: artsy-farsty weirdos who, in the middle of the week, like watching challenging and often unsatisfying films in small, intimate groups while the wine is flowing; discussion may follow, but probably won't bypass the "and what the heck was that moment about?" commentary. It's the midnight arthouse kind of earned pretentiousness that I find dazzling only when it's about something horrific. Like In the Earth. 

Despite a relative lack of scares, Wheatley's latest might be one of his more accessible genre films. It's certainly his timeliest. Dr. Martin Lowery (played by an effectively miserable Joel Fry) is on a mission in a world gone awry. As a deadly pandemic rages, forcing people to learn how to live with it, he journeys to a remote government outpost in a dense forest. Meeting up with park ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia), the two embark on a two-day trek to find Dr. Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who has been missing for months after turning off her radio. Wendle has been working with fungi and plants to improve crop growth, and has theorized that the natural world is sentient and communicates through a psychic network of roots and spores.

Before you start counting, I'll start. The references here abound, and it's easy to get distracted. Apocalyptic plants? The Happening. A journey into rural crazyville? Heart of Darkness. A mysterious monolith that might be sentient? 2001: A Space Odyssey. Shocking brutality and anguish in a world devoid of rationality or morality? Take your pick, but The Texas Chain Saw Massacre isn't a far cry. Wheatley knows how to make an effective, low-budget movie that feels expensive, and gloomy forests that just might be the home of supernatural horrors is right up his alley. From these examples, you pretty much know what's going to happen, but that doesn't stop you from giving in to this movie's hypnotic seduction.

Apart from plenty of kaleidoscopic hallucinations -- which we are made to experience along with the characters -- there isn't too much chaos in this film. An otherwise linear story is layered thickly with references, themes, and ideas that individually would make interesting movies but altogether make a muddy sort of fever dream. Possibilities, in Wheatley flicks, tend to matter more than reality, and impressions matter more than expressions. Discussions range from the scientific use of death (fungus) to increase life (crops) to the effect of the Malleus Maleficarum on Western civilization, and if that doesn't prime your head for a wild trip, you're probably already on shrooms.

Of course the woodland trek goes badly, but then it gets worse. And worse again. And bad things keep happening. There's a hostage situation with a wackadoo hermit, there's a prolonged chase, and there's some particularly gory dismemberment. There's a hazmat suit and there's white ceremonial robes, there's a bow and arrow and an axe (and a very dangerous hook). There's pre-Christian folklore, lots of blood, and an obsession with rounded openings (eyes, wounds, holes). There's speakers and strobe lights in the middle of the woods, and there's a fog of spores that rings a clearing. What do we make of all this? I guess it doesn't much matter, because that's Wheatley's job. More than once I was reminded of the 1979 Soviet film Stalker, mostly because of the weird mixture of psychology and science fiction in the woods, but Wheatley seemed to want to do it with something like Leatherface as the titular stalker.

And when they do finally find Dr. Wendle, she's about as terrifying as anything you might expect, clearly unhinged but confined under respectable layers of purpose and education and civility. She delivers some intense exposition in terms of character -- regarding her past relationships with both Martin and the batshit crazy, violent hermit Zach (Reece Shearsmith) -- and in terms of theme and plot, as she reveals that her research has bent away from agriculture and toward an eldritch guardian of the woods. Science, after all, is just the modern verbiage for magic. And when you see the unholy but very interesting experiments Wendle is enacting, it's easy to feel, for even the briefest of moments, that she might be onto something real. After the last year of our lives, aren't we all a bit desperate to try anything if it helps us all reconnect? Remember the joy we felt last spring when we saw images and read data about nature healing itself as we all locked down? Shouldn't we still yearn for that?

There's a bit of a bloodbath climax, which is nice, but then the movie just sort of ends. Leave it to Wheatley to make us scramble for comprehension and meaning after throwing so much at us, but I confess to hoping for a bit more cohesion. If the various and varied elements of this movie fit together, it's largely without clear logic or connections; that's okay, but it does leave one feeling distinctly unsatisfied. Then again, why should we feel satisfied in a movie -- in a world -- so messed up that even looking for answers will leave you brutalized, bewildered, and ultimately lost in the woods?

Rebecca (2020)

 Score: 1.5 / 5

Last night I watched a movie about Manderley again.

I was so excited when I heard Ben Wheatley was adapting the Du Maurier novel for a Netflix feature film. His work is often so intense, abstract, and disturbing that I could scarcely wait to see what he'd do with the iconic story, especially as it is his first adaptation of a classic. The hedonistic and nihilistic wonder of High-Rise, the fever dream horrors of A Field in England; it would certainly make for an interesting aesthetic when paired with the strictures of psychological drama and Gothic romance in pre-WWII England. And, since the only other noteworthy theatrical feature was in 1940, Rebecca was arguably due for a major remake.

And with an introduction of haunting beauty -- a mansion at night, lit by unearthly light as a woman walks away from us toward the front gates -- and the familiar opening narration, I was enraptured. We then jump unceremoniously then to Monte Carlo, where a young woman (Lily James) works for a darkly hilarious wannabe-socialite (Ann Dowd) while traveling abroad. The atmosphere is utterly escapist, with no mention of the Great Depression but all the sensory pleasures of a gilded Jazz Age, and cinematographer Laurie Rose works hard to make everything feel as old-school Hollywood as possible. The chromatic warmth is shared by the leading players: James, ever the wide-eyed doll thrust into a fantasy, is rescued from toil and social stagnancy by her Prince Charming, Maxim de Winter, played by Armie Hammer in an unspeakably monstrous mustard-colored suit. He summons her for drives along Mediterranean cliffs and even enacts sexual liaisons before suddenly proposing to her and sweeping her away to his estate in England.

Which is where the movie lost me. The aura of fantasy continues uninterrupted as the young unnamed protagonist -- and we -- are introduced to the de Winter home. The artificial color saturation grows, if anything, more pronounced in what eventually becomes clear to be a Gothic mansion. As the narrator becomes more keenly aware of the ghostly presence of Rebecca, the deceased former Mrs. de Winter, the movie continues its warmly lit aesthetic, making the proceedings feel increasingly soapy. Rather than fearing for the safety of our protagonist, or even her sanity, we're only kept in suspense to see what her next costume will be, where another monogrammed "R" will pop up, and if we'll ever see some eroticism between the married couple more than the Hayes Code softcore scene on a French beach.

The only visage not coated in candied hues is that of the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, played by a tight-lipped and ebony-dressed Kristin Scott Thomas in the kind of role she masters. As her dark eyes and skeletal frame slink through halls and doorways, we wonder if she stepped out of a whole different movie, perhaps even an audition for what will surely be Ryan Murphy's follow-up miniseries of a literary origin story to Ratched. But this film, written by committee, hamstrings her best efforts by hewing so damned close to the source material while simultaneously moving along between plot points without fleshing out that same source material.

The most potent power of Du Maurier's novel is in its bleak premise: Am I as good a wife/a woman/in bed as my dead predecessor? But this movie staunchly refuses to dive into that rich mystery, focusing instead on hitting all the recognizable plot points incoherently. When Jack Favell (a wasted Sam Riley) appears in a couple brief scenes late in the film, I vaguely wondered who he was, despite having recently read the book again. And instead of fleshing out crucial moments of character development, the film casts off its secondary talents in favor of a series of bizarre dream sequences with no real purpose. Mrs. de Winter follows Max sleepwalking into the west wing several times, where Rebecca once slept, in a fashion that would make you think he has an enchanted rose slowly losing petals; she later sleeps in a bed with a pattern of green vines before becoming entangled and eaten by a nightmarish Devil's Snare in her own hallway.

These kinds of scenes would have worked if director Ben Wheatley had delivered something akin to his usual fare. Whether he was handcuffed (in velvet, apparently) by Netflix, his producers, or perhaps the daunting idea of adapting the iconic piece, Wheatley's efforts here feel as watered down and inconsequential as a Hallmark adaptation. As the movie leers towards its finale, Wheatley seems more bewildered than I was; his courtroom scenes during what should be the climax demonstrate an ineptitude that borderlines on failure. And then there's the bizarre postlude scene in which Mrs. de Winter confronts a suicidal Danvers on a cliff, and the screenwriters should have been shot; it reminded me of the abject failure of Cinderella (2015) to explore Lady Tremaine's character and thus justify the remake's existence. Personally, I like remakes if only for the critical exercise of considering differing artistic interpretations on a similar work. If this had been a purely straightforward, honest-to-Daphne remake of Hitchcock's brilliant work but in color, I wouldn't have even been mad. But its own aesthetic inconsistencies and inability to make a case for its own existence makes this Rebecca about as haunting as a hangover.

I would have much preferred a version that mined the novel's suggestions and dramatized what Hitchcock could not in 1940: erotic thrills a la De Palma, a Luhrmann's Gatsby-style masquerade ball, a more pronounced necrophilic-lesbian presence, or even an out-and-out ghost story like Del Toro's Crimson Peak. True, perhaps this wasn't the place or venue for that, but this surely could have been entertaining, interesting, or fresh, if not all three. Maybe Mike Flanagan will use this mess to inspire The Haunting of Manderley Hall, which could (and should) do all that and more.

Free Fire (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

Ben Wheatley's newest flick is what would happen if you cross the climax of a Western with Tarantino and place it in 1970. But it's actually entertaining.

I've always preferred his horror pictures, and I love High-Rise despite its being a bit of a mess, but Free Fire does some really interesting things. It's essentially an hour and a half of chaos and comedy with delightful if forgettable performances, excellent choreography, a wisecracking screenplay, and lots of gun violence. I don't much care for shootouts in movies, let alone movies about shootouts, but there was enough fluff here to keep me invested. And, of course, it has a double-digit body count.

The primary fluff? Costumes. This movie is period all the way, and the '70s flair is killer. The movie is an homage to '70s B-movie style, especially with the polyester and shoulder pads, even with its lighting, which douses the set in a golden, hazy hue. "The set" is correct because there is only one: an old warehouse in Boston that serves, at least on this occasion, as the business location of an arms dealer. Sharlto Copley plays Vernon, a raging psychopath, selling his wares this time to some Irish Republican guerrillas, led by Cillian Murphy. Their associates and henchmen -- including the ferocious Brie Larson and adorable Armie Hammer -- are about evenly divided, totaling 13 characters. 12 are angry men, whose anger issues and innate violence are ignited by the revelation that one (Jack Reynor) had beaten up another (Sam Riley) recently for abusing his female cousin.

It doesn't take long -- the exposition is the first third of the movie, and frankly by the end of the film I still wasn't sure of the character names or motivations -- before bullets fly. The avenger shoots the abuser, and immediately both sides grapple for the guns (which seems unnecessary since almost all of them already had other guns on their persons) and it's, well, free fire. By the halfway mark of the movie, everyone's been shot. Half of them can't even walk. But their mouths are working just fine, and their wisecracks and insults hit the mark far more often than their bullets do. It seems very American that the characters stay hidden most of the movie, popping up sporadically to fire a stream of shots at nothing in particular or at least in the general direction of another person, and only manage to injure each other occasionally.

It's an absurdist chamber piece, but instead of wondering when Godot will show up, these guys (and gal) are trying to kill each other for no discernible reason. Several times characters pointedly mention not knowing who shot whom, or who is dead or alive. More importantly, they don't seem to care. Even after one particularly gruesome death, the characters seem to remain in good humor. The violence was inevitable, the results of that violence are expected and witnessed, but there are no lessons to be learned. It's a damning indictment of gun culture even as it defends that culture against those who would misuse it: Namely, raving lunatics and insecure men seeking to overcompensate.

There's no shortage of intelligence in this movie, though I would have preferred a bit more clarity on characters and their motivations. Sure, the film is shot and edited with precision, and how the makers managed to find so many interesting perspectives in a single, small warehouse is beyond me. But ultimately I didn't much care for anyone, so I didn't feel anything as they died. It's the opposite of a horror film, where you so often expect everyone will die but get attached to them anyway; here, I wanted to love Larson and Murphy and Hammer and Copley, but I wasn't given the chance to know them. The film even comments on this, near the climax: The only phone in the warehouse is ringing (I know, a shootout movie without cell phones is not something we see much of these days). The only phone is in the upstairs office, so of course going there is akin to suicide. One character finally picks up the phone and is immediately shot and killed by Copley. We hear the recorded message, offering a free lifetime supply of premier ground meat. The irony is that half the people in the warehouse are already ground meat, and the other half are well on their way.

IMDb: Free Fire

High-Rise (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Not unlike the films of Nicolas Winding Refn, High-Rise relies heavily on style to reach its audience. Where I might have expected the fairly plot-driven concept to translate into heightened speeches and not-so-abstract abstractions, I instead found myself totally absorbed in the vibrant images, the haunting production design of the titular complex, and its similarly complex tenants. There is nothing so delicious as a film that provokes us and overwhelms us and then leaves us desperate to catch up. Too many pictures take our hand, guiding us through the characters, the plot, the themes, and then let us out the other side after a couple hours of escape. Not so here.

Director Ben Wheatley transports us to a dystopian tower outside London where a famed architect (Jeremy Irons) has fashioned a chic abode for the accomplished and bourgeois. We follow a young doctor (Tom Hiddleston) into this tower, which we quickly see is a world unto itself, containing everything from gymnasiums and pools to restaurants and grocery stores. Trapped as we become in this paradoxically claustrophobic high-rise, we see the drama unfold between the social strata: the wealthy and influential live in the upper floors of the forty available, while lower-class families abide beneath. As the infrastructure periodically fails -- including power outages and garbage chute blockages that particularly infuriate the tenants of lower floors -- the various strata descend into violence and madness, warring against the other floors (and social classes).

Wheatley eyes the proceedings with a wicked sense of glee, allowing the horrors and the humors to coalesce into the blackest of comedies and the most stylized of thrillers. His film utilizes fluid cinematography and somewhat disconnected editing to enhance first the dreamlike quality of the apartments and secondly the dizzying madness brought on by their failure. The gorgeous costumes devolve into animalistic and bloodied scraps. The beauty and grandeur are wasted by vandals and thieves, the luxury is ignored in favor of debauchery and orgiastic hedonism. His team of designers have meticulously brought this 1970s world to life, and to then see it all destroy itself before our eyes is nothing short of astonishing. And, of course, there's the scene where James Purefoy dances with the camera.

For all its grim imagery and timely critique of our socioeconomic culture, High-Rise keeps things energetic, lively, and often very funny. It's a surreal adventure into a bizarre world of themes and images and people that is perhaps more complex than necessary, more specific than is comfortable, and more important than we expect.

IMDb: High-Rise