Jessie Buckley is put through the wringer in writer-director Alex Garland's art-horror provocation "Men," and not since Jennifer Lawrence endured "Mother!" has an actress been pushed further in service of a filmmaker's vision.
As for what that vision is, well, "Men" is something of an enigma — not unlike "Mother!" — that stays locked within itself. It's a shocking, unnerving, unruly little thing, difficult to wrangle and pin down. But the unsettling feeling it gives off resonates just as deeply as the unanswered questions it leaves behind. It's a mood piece, and that mood is dreadful.
Buckley, an Oscar nominee for last year's "The Lost Daughter," is Harper, who leaves London for a stay in the countryside after her husband, James ("I May Destroy You's" Paapa Essiedu) takes his own life. The vicious, harrowing moments that led to his suicide play in flashback throughout the film, vivid, haunting memories that Harper literally cannot escape.
