The Lighthouse (2019) Review
Well isn’t this a fine how do you do!
Plot: Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.
Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe go at it for 2 hours. I don’t mean sex (though there is an awkward moment where the two seemingly are about to kiss), I mean they go at each other’s throats for the duration of this movie, and that is basically the plot of the entire film. You might be thinking, but hey Nico, didn’t you say Cats hardly had a narrative and you hated that movie? And you’d be absolutely right, Cats sucks. It’s still the same poop I thought it to be before. However, with The Lighthouse, where the film might be light on narrative, it compensates in its execution. From the beginning shot, you feel the tension seeping through each scene, each moment so uncannily claustrophobic and weird and the suspense never letting go until the incredible final shot of the movie.
This comes to us from director Robert Eggers, who isn’t turning old New England into a horror set piece for the first time. His last directorial effort was the equally strange The Witch (also spelled as The VVitch) about a little rural village in, you guessed it, somewhere in New England and some serious shenanigans go down. I’m talking straight-up murder. I’m talking goats that are actually demons. Literally. The Witch is a weird movie. You should go watch it. With The Lighthouse though I’d say Eggers has gone even deeper into his abnormal psyche to give us a horror version of Marriage Story. And also, if you enjoy films where you like everything to be explained to you, I must give you a cheeky heads up, this ain’t that kind of movie! This will leave you with more questions than answers and what it all means, in the end, will very much be up to each individual’s interpretation. Think David Lynch with his surrealist existentialism, like Twin Peaks, where it’s all cool to look at and you enjoy watching it, but you haven’t the faintest of what in the world is going on.
In terms of negatives, I’d say The Lighthouse can feel pretentious at times, then there is also the element where it feels like the movie thinks it’s cleverer than it actually is, but overall this is a mesmerizing experience, and though not one for much repeat viewings, it’s still worth the watch just to see it before your own eyes. Also, Pattinson and Dafoe have one hell of a time slurring in old English tongue, the music score composed by Mark Korven is bone-chilling through and through, and the black-and-white cinematography is, though horrifying, damn bloody gorgeous too! “To ye, me beauty!”
Overall score: 7/10
