By George Bate
Alex Garland has established a name for himself as a leading creator of modern day sci-fi titles, with his work on Annihilation and Ex Machina prime examples of this. Garland also worked extensively on Devs, the sci-fi series that debuted to rave review on Hulu.
Garland’s latest project is Men, which stars Jessie Buckley as Harper, who moves to a small town after the death of her husband. While there, Harper encounters the town’s population, all of whom look (and played by) Rory Kinnear, even the children.
Garland recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly to talk about Men, which arrives in theaters May 20. The English screenwriter and director compared Men to his last feature film.
“In my mind, a film like Men is connected to a film like Annihilation. They’re very much about how you’re feeling about something. Men is a gut-level film. I’m proud of Ex Machina, I really love it, but it’s an intellectual film. Men is not, I think.”
Garland was also quick to describe Men as a challenging film of sorts, with many challenging scenes and, more broadly, themes of toxic masculinity, a subject that the creator also touched based on.
“It’s like giving the viewer a nudge, somehow. When I say it’s a slightly aggressive film, that’s what I mean: It’s coming at the viewer. It’s a gentle movie sometimes, there’s lots of silly humor in there, but it’s also a bit delinquent. [Toxic masculinity] comes up a lot, in different ways. With Men, I just sort of thought, ‘Screw it, I’m just gonna go straight into this.’ Maybe it’s just that with Men, instead of running underneath, it sits there on the surface.”
Men releases in theaters on May 20.