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| Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse. Image courtesy A24. |
Reality is at best a concept in The
Lighthouse. The film sees it as a thing that possibly exists,
perhaps a baseline for comparing behavior, then tosses gasoline onto
that otherwise intangible possibility and lights it ablaze. Because,
ultimately, whether or not its protagonist can differentiate between
what is real and what is in his imagination is irrelevant. Just
searching for that dividing line between them is a horrifying,
dangerous endeavor that consumes even the sturdiest of souls.
The Lighthouse stars
Robert Pattinson as Ephraim Winslow, a young lighthouse keeper
apprenticing under the boisterous Tom Wake (Willem Dafoe). The two
must spend a month tending a lighthouse on an island somewhere in New
England, with Winslow stuck doing the grunt work for Wake as Wake
tends to the light. They survive the month alone, but a massive storm
delays their transport off the island. Time becomes impossible to
track for Winslow, who begins seeing strange things around the
lighthouse, including some rather odd behavior from the mysterious
Wake.
Perhaps
Wake is not acting so strangely, which he brings up to call out
Winslow's loss of sanity. Or Winslow is perceiving the
situation correctly; there are odd things afoot on this island and
the secret lies in the light. What is clear is Winslow's perspective
is unreliable, which puts the audience in a similarly foggy place.
Director Robert Eggers (who wrote
the film with his brother Max) prefers to keep the audience in the
dark, showing Winslow as a hard and dedicated worker, only to tell
that he is a drunken, lazy oaf unworthy of trust. What The
Lighthouse shows and what it
tells are fascinating contrasts that cause the mind to do breakdown a
little as it tries to process this conundrum. And it doesn't really
matter, because Eggers' focus is on the chaos wrought by isolation
and paranoia. Lying underneath every moment is a layer of tension
waiting to burst, with Winslow and Wake perpetually a wrong comment
or valve release away from snapping. Eggers uses the sound of the
lighthouse and the island as a means of increasing that tension,
bumping the volume of the diegetic noises to perhaps tease at a slip
in control of reality for Winslow. The island is too small to escape
from the noises, creating a sense of dread and terror.
The only thing Winslow can rely on is
his stormy relationship with Wake. Once the film enters act two and
the liquor begins to flow The Lighthouse shifts into a
relationship drama between Winslow and Wake. They spend much of the
second act oscillating between friendship and fighting, affection and
outright hatred, both attracted and reviled by the existence of the
other. The most intense moments from The Lighthouse come
following the moments of sweetness. Winslow and Wake open themselves
up emotionally – Winslow by revealing a dark secret, Wake by
showing vulnerability when Winslow derides his culinary skills –
and inevitably the other finds a way to utterly decimate the other's
feelings. Each feels betrayed by the only one they care about, the
cruelty of their words heightening the film's intensity and providing
justification for the vitriol they spew at one another. Invectives
thrown by a stranger cause minimal harm, but harsh words from a loved
one cut to the core of one's being. This is by far the funniest part
of the film as well. Pattinson and Defoe have a fascinating patter
and ramp up the tenderness and vitriol, with Eggers' script adding
nice touches of era-appropriate verbiage.
The relationship between Winslow and
Wake ultimately falls apart as most relationships do when neither
person can trust the other wholesale. All Winslow can do is search
for the truth about the island and what Wake does at the lighthouse
alone at night. Winslow seeks the light desperately, hoping its
secrets can reveal some truth about the island. The Lighthouse
takes elements of a few myths of the sea along with some Greek
stories that serve as an omen for the lost Winslow. Ultimately
Winslow's quest for knowledge becomes his downfall, suffering a fate
akin to that of the bringer of light onto earth, destroyed by his
curiosity and hubris.
Review:
Four and a half out of Five Stars
Click
here
to see the trailer.
Rating:
R
Run
time: 109 minutes
Genre:
Horror
tl;dr
What
Worked: Robert
Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, tension, humor
What
Fell Short: A
little too long in the third act
What
To Watch As Well:
Jacob's
Ladder,
The Shining
