The Lighthouse: A Wholly Unique Symphony of Insanity

Between Nosferatu and now this, I'm starting to think that this Robert Eggers guy likes making dark movies. But to call The Lighthouse merely dark would be to sell its intent remarkably short and play into the common misconception that dark is just another flavor that a filmmaker can sprinkle their movie with, a misconception that makes some people think that movies with a broody character are automatically high art and makes other people reject darker films that are legitimately good as merely dark. No, The Lighthouse steps significantly beyond the label of dark. This movie has one goal and one goal alone: to drive you, the viewer, completely and utterly insane. Does it work? Granted, I was already insane, so I cannot entirely confirm or deny, but if the all-encompassing feeling I felt after finishing this movie was some manner of insanity, then yes, this movie works and works remarkably effectively at that. The Lighthouse is an audio-visual experience unlike anything I've seen or heard before, and I can see why it's a favorite among the strange little cult that is A24's fan base, a following of a production company that I may or may not have a soft spot for. The Lighthouse is really good, and though it may be an almost paradoxically overused cliche, it is also completely unlike anything I've seen in my run as a critic. You could say that its vision is sticking to me tighter than a Kraken's tentacle to an unfortunate sailor, but if I were to endorse such a saying, it would be to acknowledge that I took a little bit of this movie's insanity with me even after the credits rolled. So yes, I am more insane now than I used to be, and I'm loving it. I think it's high time for a review.

The Lighthouse is a 2019 psychological thriller film directed by Robert Eggers and produced by A24. It follows Howard (Robert Pattinson), a young man assigned to look after a lighthouse off the coast of New England for four weeks under the authority and supervision of Wake (Willem Dafoe), an older man who used to be a sailor. The two men struggle to keep ahold of their sanity as the isolation and elements gradually erode it.

The visual style of The Lighthouse is fascinating, and I can't think of many studios other than A24 that would have allowed this style to be presented the way it was. This movie uses an aspect ratio of 1:19:1, which gives the film something of a claustrophobic, surreal, and classic feeling. In fact, as I was researching The Lighthouse, I found out that Eggers did want to use a slimmer aspect ratio than we as an American audience are used to in a movie, but that he shrunk it down even further upon discovering that 1:19:1 was the ratio that was used by filmmakers when the film industry was first transitioning to sound back in the 1920s. This aspect ratio choice combined with the black-and-white color grade makes for an unusual and moody experience that eschews the traditional trappings of other major motion pictures being released today. On the audio side of the audio/visual realm of The Lighthouse, its sound design is probably the best thing about the movie. The soundscape we hear is pervasive and non-stop, and intentionally so in a way that gets under your skin. Eggers and his crew are trying to drive you a little insane with their movie, and they're good at doing it too. All of these impressive technical aspects create a good backdrop for the best thing about The Lighthouse, which is its unusually intense focus on character that features some incredibly impressive performances from both Dafoe and Pattinson. The two men utterly disappear into their roles, and their acting is some of the best and most distinct work I've seen in a movie this year. Their intensity works well with the slow and contemplative pace of The Lighthouse, which displays a self-assuredness and willingness to contemplate that impressed me. This movie is in no hurry to get anywhere and is content to turn the spotlight on the two sailors and let their struggle to retain their humanity carry the movie, which it does successfully. This approach did sacrifice some of the film's momentum, but what The Lighthouse loses in plot, it gains in character development. I don't know if I've sufficiently described what Dafoe and Pattinson brought to this movie, so I'm going to try again. Wake and Howard feel like people, not just characters, and this level of characterization is exceedingly rare to see in any movie produced anywhere at any time, domestically or abroad, present or past. What's more, I felt like I was going insane right alongside the two men while watching this movie. There's some effective set-up and payoff to be seen in The Lighthouse as well, and a lot of the seemingly arbitrary seafarer's stories actually end up mattering in concrete ways instead of just abstract ones.

As far as some of my complaints go, I already addressed the fact that this movie's momentum can be wanting, but I also noticed that the intentional character-centrism that is this film's biggest strength also turns out to be its greatest weakness. The Lighthouse can be passive at times. A lot is happening to our characters, but they're also not doing much of anything important to the plot. It's like they're existing instead of doing anything to make this movie move. This is a common weakness for A24 films, so much so that for me, this particular flaw has become somewhat synonymous with the studio itself. Fortunately, this overarching problem is the only major flaw I noticed in The Lighthouse, and what the film does well, it does very well. Now, to switch gears on you, some of my more progressive peers have tried to label this movie as a queer romance between Howard and Wake, and I personally disagree with this label. This movie does one thing, and that thing is to put two men together in a lonely lighthouse on a lonely island and then let them go insane together. A lot of people are looking for answers from this movie when it's obviously more interested in asking questions, and if this particular conversation might have steered you away from watching this movie, don't let it. With the knowledge that almost nothing in this movie is explicitly stated and instead left up to interpretation, watch it for yourself, and then make up your own mind.

All of this said, I liked The Lighthouse, and I mostly like how it is actively trying to drive you out of your mind from the very beginning to the very end. It's a wholly unique experience that contains some excellent performances, and I like how willing it is to care about the little things that wouldn't have mattered to anyone other than Eggers and the crew working on it, even if this care does come at the expense of some meat on the bones of its plot. This movie has something of a reputation among the film students at my school, and I can say that it certainly lived up to that reputation. For the most part, it's a very good movie that doesn't seem to care enough to address some of its weaker aspects - and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, because The Lighthouse identifies what it's good at, and then insists on shoving it's strengths to the very front and center of the film. Nevertheless, despite all of these strengths, in case you're a concerned parent who's wondering - yes, this movie adheres religiously to its R rating. The cursing is light-to-standard for an R-rated movie, and the violence is infrequent but strong. There's a brief shot of a woman's bare breasts as well as a few scenes depicting masturbation, which I suppose isn't to be unexpected when you put a couple of lonely men on an island without any women around. Also, the maturity of this movie is often more felt than it is seen, and make no mistake, The Lighthouse can be a very dark and grown-up movie for people with grown-up sensibilities. Nevertheless, despite containing a lot of content that found it's way into the "parental advisory" section of this review, I personally really liked this movie because of its radically unrecognizable vision of a recognizable past, as well as its honest-to-goodness attempt to make you feel deep in your bones the insanity that pervades it's every crevice.

The Lighthouse - 8/10

Matthew 5:14-16