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Despite all of the mystery that Men, writer / director Alex Garlands new folk horror for A24, has been shrouded in, the movies story about a haunted woman trying to find peace in a world full of leering, lecherous men is a surprisingly straightforward one. Men is often arresting in its brutality as it spins a stomach-turning tale about the multifaceted monster that misogyny truly is. But Men struggles to keep its messages and all their headiness in focus largely because of its frustrating obsession with making you question just how much of its otherworldliness is real.

Men tells the story of Harper Marlowe (Jessie Buckley), a young widow who takes off to the English countryside for a solitary retreat following her husband James (Paapa Essiedu) unexpected and grisly death by suicide. Men doesnt reveal much about either Harper or James as individual people or what first brought them together as a couple, but through flashbacks, the movie details the toxic mix of abuse and emotional manipulation that ultimately led to the end of their marriage. Though Harper knows that leaving James was the right decision and that James suicide was not her fault, she cant help but feel partially responsible and psychologically trapped by the traumatic circumstances of his death.

That feeling of being stuck and harmed by someones emotional violence even after theyve died is one of the first manifestations of the malevolent entity that Mens title refers to. Men illustrates that, while Harpers trip is something she wants to do for herself, most everyone she interacts with save for her friend Riley (Gayle Rankin) readily presumes that shes traveling with a man because she couldnt possibly have the desire to get out on her own.

Everyone is a loaded concept within the context of Men, in part because there truly arent all that many other people living in the remote and impossibly quaint village where Harpers rented out a luxurious manor all to herself. Aside from Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), the awkward, bumbling parody of an English countryman who owns the house where Harpers staying, the only other people really living in the village seem to be a small assortment of male townsfolk all of whom are also inexplicably and unsettlingly portrayed by Kinnear. Whether or not Harper herself can see that every male-identified person she meets in the village has the same grown mans face isnt clear, and Men leaves that question open for you to interpret as its story becomes increasingly strange and symbolic.

Though Men clues you in to the danger circling around Harper, it isnt until she ventures out into the nearby woods for a walk and encounters a naked man Kinnear once again that it becomes apparent to her. Being chased through a secluded forest by a crazed man covered in bruises and cuts is alarming all on its own. But an important element of the horror Men conjures is how easy it is for the men around Harper to dismiss her fear regardless of how undeniably justified it is.

Though theyre important feelings she experiences as Men unfolds, neither fear nor guilt is what defines Buckleys Harper, a woman who reflexively hides parts of who she is from strangers more out of caution than anything else. As one of the few women to appear in Men, Harper unexpectedly becomes a kind of final girl as the movie mutates into a home invasion thriller thats equal parts cerebral and straightforward. Mens implicitly supernatural trappings invite you to question its heroines state of mind. But Buckley brings a steadfast resolve to her performance as Harper, reinforcing the idea that the only person who could imagine this simply being in her head is someone whos never known what it feels like to have their agency and bodily autonomy disregarded because of their sex or gender.

The strange energy that each of Kinnears different characters has occasionally plays as enigmatic because Men doesnt really clue you in to all that much about who they are outside of the fact that, in different ways, they all have bones to pick with women. Geoffreys simpering, emotional stuntedness may make it difficult for, say, the villages priest or barkeep to see much of themselves in him. But Men shows you how the thing that unites them is an almost elemental disdain and lust for Harper.

At times especially when its male characters are reveling in their most base, id-driven sexual impulses Men bears a certain narrative similarity to Emerald Fennels Promising Young Woman. But unlike Promising Young Woman, where you were partially meant to be horrified because of how awful all of its seemingly good men truly were, Men leaves little room for questioning how each of its titular characters is an existential threat to Harper.

Much of what takes place in Mens final acts is genuinely mind-boggling and fucked up in ways that make you appreciate Garland for being willing to go there. That said, the way Men comes to a close will also make you question the degree to which Garland thought through the optics and implications of his story as a whole beyond their immediate ability to make you profoundly uncomfortable.

Men wants to leave you thinking more deeply about what its trying to say, and its likely that many people who end up seeing the film will feel inclined to. But the same heightened reality that makes Mens scares so potent ultimately has a muddling effect on the movies message, so much so that you cant be sure whether Garland himself understood what he was trying to say.

Men also stars Sarah Twomey, Zak Rothera-Oxley, and Sonoya Mizuno. The movie hits theaters on May 20th.

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Alex Garland's Men has more than one thing on its mind - The Verge