‘Men’ Film Review: Jessie Buckley and All the Rory Kinnears Populate Alex Garland’s Eccentric Horror

EXCLUSIVE: In a worldwide rights deal, Apple Original Films has landed Fingernails, the sci-fi love story to star Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter) and Riz Ahmed (The Sound of Metal). It marks the English language debut of Apples director Christos Nikou. Deal went down late Saturday night.

If one actor plays multiple roles in a film, that film is usually a comedy, as the technique is often viewed as an excuse for someone to show off their “wacky” versatility. That technique, however, and the presumption of how it’s applied is radically turned on its head in writer/director Alex Garland’s new surreal and discomfiting horror film, “Men,” from A24.

Deadline’s annual group of Ones to Watch in Cannes is made up of actors and filmmakers who are all bringing something fresh to the festival. The distinction isn’t always reserved for brand new faces; rather, we’ve selected people who are branching out, or who find themselves in waters where they are liable to make waves. Cannes can be a place of reinvention, after all.

Note: This interview contains minor spoilers for “Men.”Jessie Buckley didn’t come away from starring in “Men” with any answers. To her, pinning down the film’s exact meaning would be beside the point.“I don’t really have a singular meaning to it,” the Irish actor and singer admitted in a recent interview with TheWrap.

“Men.”The filmmaker unfolds a twisted, trauma-filled narrative with Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley’s Harper at its dead center. Following the unimaginably painful death of her husband (“I May Destroy You’s” Paapa Essiedu), the young woman seeks refuge in the serene English countryside to grieve and heal.

Men (★★★☆☆) doesn’t aim for perfect clarity in its nightmarish vision of a woman alone in a country house being stalked by strangers. The movie doesn’t demand to be concisely understood or interpreted.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for “Men”The films of writer-director Alex Garland – including 2014’s “Ex Machina” and 2018’s “Annihilation” – are known for their sci-fi horror premises, unusual settings and, above all, mind-bending finales. His third film “Men” elevates those trademarks to a new level, especially its gory, perplexing ending. The nightmare begins when Harper (Jessie Buckley) rents a house in the English countryside, craving a respite from the city where her husband tragically died.

Wilson Chapman editorSpoiler alert: Do not read if you haven’t watched “Men,” now in theaters.In the new A24 horror film “Men,” Rory Kinnear plays the title character — or more accurately, characters. Kinnear portrays a parade of male characters that populate a secluded English village — from a mild-mannered country house owner to a rude teenage boy to a predatory vicar to “the Green Man,” a figure of pagan mythology brought to life.As Jessie Buckley’s Harper, holidaying in the country after the traumatic death of her abusive husband James (Paapa Essiedu), encounters these figures, the interactions escalate to become more and more dangerous, until she finds herself trapped in her house fighting for her life.

IDLES, Holly Humberstone, Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler, will be joining the festival’s 2022 line-up.The National and The Chemical Brothers were previously announced as headliners of the Scottish festival, which takes place at Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Centre from August 26 – 28. View the line-up poster below.Other names on the bill for the rebooted event, include Mogwai, Little Simz, Self Esteem, Black Country, New Road, Jon Hopkins, Black Coffee, Bonobo, Bombay Bicycle Club, John Grant, LOW, Idlewild and more.

Emiliano De Pablos Vértice 360, one of Spain’s top indie production-distribution companies, is expanding operations to Latin America, Italy and Portugal, as fruit of its ambitious plan to become a reference on the international film distribution scene.Part of the Squirrel Media group, the Madrid-based distributor is backing a first stage of its international expansion with the investment of more than $100 million in film content for distribution in the 35 territories where it already operates. At the current Cannes Film Market, Vértice is looking for movie deals to expand its international line up.The distributor mainly looks for blockbusters going out to independent industry and prestige projects which are liable to win international awards, but also local productions in both Spanish and English. Vértice has already established business relationships with top independent content providers such as Millennium Media, FilmNation, A24, Studiocanal and Pathé. “We have with them a title-by-title relationship, with a maximum degree of collaboration.

As this year’s Cannes Film Festival gets underway, the marketplace for upcoming films that happens each year at the festival heats up too. And the crop at Cannes 2022 looks very appealing so far, with Cronenberg‘s “The Shrouds,” a couple of films starring Jessie Buckley, and Michel Gondry‘s first movie in seven years all up for sale.

K.J. Yossman Paapa Essiedu has appeared in fare as varied as Michaela Coel’s critically acclaimed drama “I May Destroy You” and crime series “Gangs of London” but his latest turn, as James in Alex Garland’s latest feature “Men,” may be his most unusual role yet.

Alex Garland is behind some fantastic and acclaimed genre projects such as “Ex Machina,” his tech-thriller FX series “DEVS,” and the recent project “Men” starring Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear. He originally made the jump from author to screenwriter and then made another pivot to directing but doesn’t see himself as a director and might not be doing it for much longer.

Manori Ravindran International EditorIFC Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights from HanWay Films on Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s “Hot Milk,” starring Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps.Streaming service MUBI has also agreed a multi-territory deal for the film in the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Latin America and Turkey.

Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley dazzled last year as Leda Caruso, the complicated, unlikeable woman at the heart of Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s adaptation of Elena Ferrante‘s “The Lost Daughter.” And it looks like fans of the in-demand actresses won’t have to wait too long for their onscreen reunion. Their next film together is on the market at the Cannes Film Festival, courtesy of Studiocanal.

It wasn’t Jessie Buckley’s audition but an observation she made that got her the leading role in “ Men.”When speaking to filmmaker Alex Garland about his heady idea to grapple with masculinity and its foundational myths and virulent cycles within a folk horror construct, Buckley caught him off guard: She started talking about the metallic taste of blood and how the character might feel about it. It was strange and unusual and perfect, he thought.“It was quite an abstract way of thinking.

Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley will be reuniting once again for a brand new movie.

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off their Oscar nominations for drama The Lost Daughter, Oscar winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite) and Chernobyl star Jessie Buckley are set to reunite on comedy Wicked Little Letters, which will be a hot project at the Cannes market.

Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler have today (May 13) shared the third single from their upcoming new album – listen to it below.The track, called ‘Seven Red Rose Tattoos’, follows on from previous releases, ‘The Eagle And The Dove’ and ‘For All The Days That Tear The Heart’.The singles are taken from the pair’s upcoming new album, ‘For All Our Days That Tear The Heart’, which will arrive on June 10.Speaking about the new track, Buckley said: “We give people roses to signify love, but etched into flesh, they represent something different.”You can listen to the track here:‘For All Our Days That Tear The Heart’ Tracklisting: 1. ‘The Eagle & The Dove’2. ‘For All Our Days That Tear The Heart’3. ’20 Years A-Growing’4. ‘Babylon Days’5. ‘Seven Red Rose Tattoos’6. ‘Footnotes On The Map’7. ‘We’ve Run The Distance’8. ‘We Haven’t Spoke About The Weather’9. ‘Beautiful Regret’10. ‘I Cried Your Tears’11. ‘Shallow The Water’12. ‘Catch The Dust’Speaking about their new album project recently, Buckley and Butler said in a joint statement: “The album should be discovered by the world as if they have tripped across a box of photographs in the back of their closet they didn’t know was there.”A statement about the collaboration added: “It all started with a FaceTime call from Butler’s North London kitchen to Buckley’s mountaintop residence in County Kerry, with their friendship growing from an unlikely shared love of Killarney and the small island of Valentia where Butler would go on holiday as a boy.

FilmNation is behind some hot packages at the Cannes Market this year with projects that include the noir thriller “Knox Goes Away” which has Michael Keaton (“Birdman“) set to star/direct, the Woody Harrelson thriller “Last Breath,” and the new supernatural film “The Shrouds” from David Cronenberg. Their latest offering going to auction comes from producer Cate Blanchett and is the English-language debut of Greek director Christos Nikou (“Apples“).