It's Wednesday my Dudes- The Lighthouse (2019)

The first thing I want to know is, why is Robert Eggers so obsessed with birds? He has now directed two films and both feature evil birds. When he’s writing a new script he must at some point consider how many trained birds he wants on set.

I think Eggers is one of my favourite film directors working at the moment. He makes these great not-so-scary horror films, which are full of surreal symbolism and they're just a treat to watch. I loved The Witch (2015), his first film, about a young girl slowly seduced into life as a witch. It’s creepy, it’s bizarre, and ultimately a very cool and entertaining watch.

I think a lot of people walked away from The Witch feeling cheated somehow, as if it should have been scarier. I don’t go into horror films hoping to be scared if I’m honest, I have a soft spot for creepy and clever films that aren’t really all that scary. Eggers films have so far satisfied my need to indulge in dark content without being scarred for days afterwards. I was interested to see if that tone would be continued in The Lighthouse, and I wasn’t disappointed. 

There’s a lot of weirdness in The Witch. Sidenote, does anyone else feel compelled to pronounce the title of the film as the v-v-itch because of the wanky stylisation of the title on movie posters? It can’t just be me. By comparison, The Lighthouse seriously turns the weirdness up a notch.

The story of The Lighthouse is essentially two men working in a lighthouse on a remote island for four weeks, slowly descending into cabin fever. But in actuality, the film is so much more than that, adopting hints of mythology and the surreal right from Eggers own imagination. I’m talking mermaids, creepy mermaids of course. I expect Robert Pattinson is destined to a life of encountering evil mermaids on film after he starred in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). But would you expect anything less from this absolute weirdo? I feel like R Pattz must choose a script according to the number of wanking scenes. R Pattz shows little fear in taking on roles with lots of “self abuse” as it’s described in this film.

But William Defoe, Pattinson’s counterpart in this film, proves just as daring in his role. Defoe’s character, named Thomas Wake, is a nasty boss by day. Tom forces Robert Pattinson’s Ephraim Winslow to repeat completed tasks while bullying him. Worse still, as time passes the events of their time on the island become blurred between fantasy and reality with some unhelpful gaslighting from Tom to Ephraim. 

Our story takes a turn when Ephraim brutally kills a seagull, despite being warned by Tom to never harm a sea bird. Following this, we witness the wind change and the two are not picked up by the arriving ship, as promised. They are stuck on the island indefinitely to wait out the stormy weather.

While stuck on the island, Tom does away with the bully he is by day and becomes an unpredictable merry drunkard at night. As a result, the two become increasingly intimate at night. This makes Ephraim even more suspicious of his superior, who is at one moment cruel and berating, and in the next his close companion. This contributes to the deliberately confusing storytelling of the film.

I think that both these characters are outsiders, running away from their pasts and struggling to fit within society.They ultimately fail to work in harmony with one another, their only other companions on the island. In their loneliness they are driven together but in their greed and suspicion they are driven to sabotage one another. Their biggest point of tension is the light itself, which has a mysterious paranormal appeal to them both. Tom is possessive over the light and this partially causes the battle for power between the two leads.

I was concerned that the film would have a dull set up because it’s reliant on just the two performers, but I was pleasantly surprised. Right from the outset, the Lighthouse kept me hooked. I just love a film that leans into surreal imagery by way of storytelling and I think its best use is in the horror genre. It reminds me of similar montages in Rosemary’s Baby (1968), or more recently, Midsommer (2019). I’m always down for a horrific montage.

When we aren’t witnessing the growing tension between our two leads, we are witnessing Ephraim’s increasingly nasty visions of sea related horrors. I think Eggers has improved his pacing since The Witch. Where The Witch takes you by surprise, The Lighthouse doesn’t allow you to catch your breath.

This movie is also somehow so funny. It’s marketed as a horror, sure, but the interactions between Defoe and Pattinson are fluid, at times terse, and in the next moment strikingly funny. I think it’s the mark of a good script and great performances that a film is quotable. I knew that at some point Defoe said “Why did ye spill ye beans?” And I wasn’t disappointed by the context for this line.

There’s so much more I could explore with this film, it’s shot in black in white, which looks gorgeous. And I’m not even going to pretend I entirely understood all of the film’s symbolism. It was a wild ride.

I obviously highly recommend this film, it may be one of my favourite films I watched this year. If anything I outlined above appealed to you, please check out this film. I watched it on Apple TV.