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from the acclaimed director who brought
his films such as ex machina
annihilation and fx on hulu's devs comes
a brand new a24 horror film written and
directed by alice garland by the name of
men now i saw this movie over a week ago
and i still can't get the last 20
minutes out of my head and that's
exactly what we will be discussing in
this breakdown now i'm going to attempt
to share with you all my thoughts and my
theories on what exactly transpired in
this movie this is my men in an
explained breakdown full spoilers ahead
as we open the film with meeting our
main character by the name of harper we
learn via flashbacks what exactly
happened between her and her losing her
husband now we see a fight breaks out
between the two in which harper no
longer wants to be in this marriage with
james now james does not take the news
well and he tells harper not only will
he take his own life but in doing so he
will always torment her if she doesn't
stay with him and love him now harper
does not take the news lightly and they
get into a fight in which leads to james
punching her in the face she kicks him
out of the apartment now we'll be
discussing this a little bit later did
james accidentally fall off the
apartment building or did he keep his
promise in taking his own life now after
this transpires we see that harper takes
a mental vacation to the beautiful
english countryside in which she comes
across a bunch of men who look exactly
the same now throughout the film we're
seeing harper interact with these men
and all the interactions are either
weird or extremely uncomfortable which
leads to harper calling her best friend
by the name of riley throughout the film
who wants her friend to be in peace
riley decides to come down to the
countryside which leads into our insane
and very disturbing and very unique
third act of the film now i think it's
important to establish a couple things
very early on starting off with who was
the homeless man and his connections to
the green man now in my research looking
up the green man there are many
different interpretations of this figure
now the main one i found was it can be
interpreted as a symbol of rebirth
representing the cycle of new growth
that occurs every spring now the green
man is a recurring theme throughout many
different stories sometimes the figure
can be seen in stories such as robin
hood peter pan in my personal favorite
film of last year a24 the green knight
now here's where my theory comes in
stick with me on this one i believe the
homeless man and the green man were two
of the same in this narrative i believe
as we know the green man is someone that
represents rebirth but also represents
the cycle of growth that occurs every
spring now it's not a coincidence that
harper happens to be here on this
vacation during the springtime now i
believe the green man was looking for
mother earth to give birth aka harper
being the mother earth in this scenario
but she refuses but before we get into
what happens when you refuse the green
man let's discuss the men played by rory
kinnear in this film i personally
believe the film tackles with the idea
of the men in this movie not in the
entire world but the men in this film
putting or should i say forcing their
emotions on harper's character for
example we have james harper husband i
will take my own life if you don't love
me forcing her love on him let's talk
about the vicar you should allow men to
express themselves physically and give
them the room to apologize on top of his
comments that he clearly is infatuated
with her and he blames harper for the
way he feels about her let's talk about
the teenager in this film who calls her
a [ __ ] for not playing the simple game
of hide-and-go-seek with her and of
course we have the police who dismisses
her with her being afraid of the
homeless man that they let out of prison
early and then we have jeffrey who on
all accounts seem to be the nicest out
of all the men but even his comments
earlier in the film when he mentions the
forbidden fruit which i mean within
itself this film tackles religion and it
even has the story of adam and eve
involved with this infinite agreement
between men and women who are given this
task of procreating to keep humanity
going but even the small remarks by
jeffrey regarding the not flushing her
tampons during the toilet and even him
making this beautiful huge mansion seems
so suffocating because of all the rules
he's thrown on her but i think the big
question at hand in with regards to
these men why didn't harper react to
seeing them all look exactly the same i
personally think that this was more for
the audience point of view to see that
these men are physically looking the
same but they obviously have different
alterations and variations between them
but ultimately they felt the same to
harper's character because they were
throwing their actions towards her and
more importantly throwing their
masculinity on her now harper she wasn't
having it she was not going to endure
all of their emotions on her she wasn't
going to be forced to love her husband
she wasn't gonna take the remarks from
the vicar and now this is what leads
into the madness of the most disturbing
element of this film the rebirth now
circling back to the green man and
harper's rejection to giving birth in
this case being mother earth he decides
to give birth to the same versions of
himself which to me symbolizes the idea
that if men can't have women to
procreate they're just going to recreate
themselves over and over and over again
without the help of a woman now to me
this ultimately ties back to the idea
that her husband who cursed her earlier
in the film mixed in with his folklore
of the green man arrives for only harper
to yet again deny this burden at the end
of the film now as we wrap up the film
we see that her best friend riley
finally arrives seeing that she is
pregnant and this puts a smile on
harper's face because in my opinion this
was her thing of being happy to see that
the world is in good standing because
women are ultimately needed to balance
the world and not be flooded with the
masculinity of these men so one more
topic i want to tackle before wrapping
up this breakdown i asked the question
do i believe james accidentally fell off
the apartment building or did he take
his own life i do think that he just
couldn't live with the idea that harper
wouldn't love him and in return he took
his life and we see that he kept his
promise in tormenting her but she did
not take on that burden so a very
interesting film i did do a non-spoiler
review kind of giving you more of my
analytical thoughts and i gave you the
score of the film so you can check out
that video to get more of my thoughts on
the movie but overall i think a lot of
people will be talking about the third
act and hey this is my attempt to try to
give you all my thoughts on the green
man and what exactly happened in the
third act of this film so if you enjoyed
this breakdown make sure you all are
giving this video a thumbs up but also
sharing your thoughts your opinions your
pros your cons what deeper meanings did
you all take away from the film what
were some things that really stood out
to you let's have those discussions in
the comments below if you stuck around
to the point of the video i can't thank
you enough before you all leave as you
can see on the screen now come and join
the community check out my non-spoiler
review for this film check out my most
recent video and we'll catch you all on
the next breakdown
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