Men

I cannot believe that it took me this long to finally get to this movie. This movie is so good and so unsettling. There is so much symbolism in this movie idk where to even begin. Ok, maybe I will start with how I interpreted the ending. Let's start backwards. People may disagree but I sort of perceived Harper's whole experience as a mental "trip". Like I am not sure any of this actually happened to her (not trying to gas light her like the men in the movie! Promise!) The reason I say this is because her friend finds her at this retreat far later (she's pregnant when we see her at the very end and I don't think she was while she was facetiming her bestie). To me, she is having psychosis over the trauma surrounded by her ex's death, and she cannot process it properly. She lingers in this place because she cannot escape the tragedy and, ironically, it is showing she is still in a man's power (even through guilt!). The next thing I want to address is the green man. He is supposed to represent an old pagan deity that represents nature and fertility (I think?) I know there is a lot more, but those two components suffice for the reincarnation of male toxicity as it is passed on and on to more male generations. The end where the green man literally gives birth to different "versions" of the man whose face is evident throughout the retreat. That was a very literal representation of how men are just the same just in different forms. They even CGI'd that little boy's face to be the creepy full grown man's face! (I was getting Vivarium vibes). Now, with all of this said, the final form of "man" that the green man ultimately birthed was Harper's ex which really was indication of all the trauma being tied together. They even have and share the same injuries of his suicide. Throughout the movie, we see the blame shifted to Harper no matter what any of the men do at the retreat. The police man doesn't take her seriously, the priest dude blames her for not only her ex's death but for his longing for her at the very end, and even the nice dude that owns the place she is staying in does not take her seriously and sort of categorizes her as the classic "hysterical and weak" woman. This entire movie is basically the Holy Grail of what it is like to not be a man in today's society. My favorite symbolism in the movie is when Harper literally hears her own voice in the tunnel and plays with the echos. It was like she was literally finding and owning her voice for the first time. I could go on and on about this movie and is one I would love to discuss with others that have found this movie as crazy good as I did. A24 does it again!

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars. IT'S FREAKING GOOD. A lot to unpack.