The Lighthouse

Speaking of Dafoe, he’s so good in this. He definitely deserves a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Pattinson is good, too, for sure, but Dafoe is just spellbinding. The cinematography is also a stark feast.

The Good:
Tonally, this film reminds me of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, specifically Sidney Lumet’s black-and-white 1962 film version starring Katharine Hepburn, Sir Ralph Richardson, and Jason Robards. I don’t have any elaborate point-by-point comparison prepared. I just find the vibe of the two films so similar (to a point).

More broadly, this movie reminds me of something I would have read in high school, specifically junior year in American Lit. Willem Dafoe seems to be doing a one-man show of Moby Dick. Meanwhile, Robert Pattinson is clearly stuck in some kind of private hell scripted by Eugene O’Neill or Tennessee Williams. (Actually, he occasionally reminded me of Marlon Brando. Isn’t that weird?)

The sets are so (intentionally) ramshackle and shabby that it was easy for me to imagine the project as a high school play, and I felt a pang of regret that I will never grow into the Willem Dafoe part. (I mean, one advantage of growing older is that if I ever do community theater, I might be able to pull off the Josephine Hull part in Arsenic and Old Lace. In fact, other than delaying death, that may be the only advantage of growing older. But I will never grow into a grizzled wickie, try as I might.)  (Dafoe’s character’s name is Thomas Wake, by the way.  I kept hearing Thomas Wycke and thinking, “His name is Thomas Wycke, and he’s a wickie?  How improbable!”  Of course, Thomas Wake is even more provocative within the greater context of the film.  Names matter a lot in this one.)  (And would’t it be great if Keanu Reeves did some parody sketch featuring John Wickie, the lighthouse keeper who really loves his dog?)

Dafoe plays his part as if someone took a copy of Moby Dick, a volume of obscure American poetry, an albatross, Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa, and a villain from Scooby Doo, threw them all into a sack together, shook it up, doused it with rum, and set it on fire. He’s fantastically entertaining to watch. Of course, it’s a performance of high theatricality, but it’s just such a pleasure to watch him every moment he’s on screen. I kept marveling at his versatility (I mean, compare this to his equally great work in The Florida Project), then marveling even more at his elocution. (His breath-control alone is Oscar worthy. Sometimes he’s dishing out complicated curses or dizzying diatribes for multiple minutes at a time without pausing to inhale.) The technical skill he exhibits in the performance is pretty darn impressive.

Perhaps most to be congratulated is the casting director. (I don’t know who cast the two stars. Did Eggers himself have them in mind?) Robert Pattinson has the perfect face for slowly going mad in a lighthouse in the most aesthetic and unsettling way possible. And then Willem Dafoe offers the perfect contrast. (And please don’t think I mean that Dafoe is ugly. He just has such striking features also and a completely different look than Pattinson.) (I worry that because Pattinson is so beautiful, this sounds like I’m insulting Willem Dafoe’s looks, but actually I find him by far the more appealing of the two.)

Pattinson also gives an excellent performance, definitely the best work I’ve seen from him (which, admittedly, is not hard since I’ve only ever actually seen him in Goblet of Fire and the first Twilight movie). I’ve heard for years that Pattinson is a good actor, and his work here confirms it. Also, while Dafoe’s characterization is largely static (not to suggest the character is without hidden depths), Pattinson’s is always evolving. As the film goes on, we learn more and more about his character, and his performance becomes exponentially more interesting.

These two are the only characters in the movie, so since both actors give excellent performances, the film is always engaging.  We do see a few other people in flashbacks or surreal sequences or silhouette. But Pattinson and Dafoe play the only fully realized characters. One or the other of them is always on the screen.

We also see a lot of a certain mermaid (and I do mean a lot. Everything you may or may not have heard about mermaid anatomy in this movie is true). Valeriia Karaman plays the mermaid, but she’s more an element of a repeated dream sequence than a character in her own right. I don’t think she has any actual lines beyond a few disturbing shrieks (and maybe some grunts or gurgles; I can’t remember).

I won’t spoil anything about the plot beyond saying that there is something to spoil. You don’t just see these two guys yelling, “What?” back and forth until the movie ends (as the bizarre trailer may lead you to believe). The situation does evolve, and we do gain greater insight into both characters.

For a film that prides itself on being surreal and disturbing, the character development is surprisingly good. The story does go somewhere. Even the dialogue (which can sometimes be strange) enhances the overall experience of the film.  (It’s so easy to imagine a clever high school student dropping acid and as a class assignment adapting a short story he finds in a textbook into this soggy, surreal nightmare.)  Though the presentation is weird, the story is character driven and pretty solid.

But I must say I really loved the way this movie looked. Along with Dafoe’s supporting performance, the eerie visual aesthetic is the highlight of the film. I very quickly fell in love with Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography, always so careful and deliberate. Usually black-and-white is used with deliberateness and care, but this film looks exceptionally alluring. The camera angles are mesmerizing, mood building, and sometimes even narrative-advancing. I frequently found myself daydreaming about getting a job taking black-and-white photos of decrepit lighthouses. The set design is also fascinating, the undulating curvaceousness of the light in contrast to all those sharply angular (and sometimes broken) dark lines below.

I also loved Mark Korven’s score which is unusual for me since it’s one of those dark, oppressive scores. I don’t know that I could stand the music on its own, but it certainly serves the story.

Best Scene Visually:
Two moments stand out to me. The first is when Pattinson’s character is fixing the shingles on the roof, looking down.

The second (and far more noteworthy) is partially shown in the trailer, when Pattinson’s character crouches below the light and looks upward, his features twisting more and more into madness. He’s lit like an angel here, which is fitting since he looks like the devil by the time our extended gaze at his sickening countenance comes to an end.

I also love all of the moments shot from below looking up (often at an angle).

Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Willem Dafoe:
Maybe my favorite scene in the entire film is the exhaustive endless imprecation Dafoe’s character spits out after Pattinson makes a remark about steak. I’m dazzled by Dafoe’s elocution in this scene.

Best Scene:
Along with the moment I just mentioned, probably the best scene is when (against advice) Pattinson’s character finally does spill his beans. We suddenly gain insight we didn’t know we needed, and Pattinson’s delivery of this monologue is impressive.

Best Action Sequence:
For a film that really is just two guys in a lighthouse, this movie has a shocking amount of action.

All of the bits with the gull are gripping.  The scene with the gull at the cistern, just before the wind changes is full of such frenzied energy.  The cinematography is great here, too, and the foreshadowing can’t be beat.  

What I really like best, though, is the dirtiest part of the fight between the two keepers, late in the film. I’m so impressed that Dafoe is able to deliver his lines under those conditions.  (That’s an image that will stick with me, too.  I should have also mentioned it when talking about the film’s visuals, but visually, the movie soars at all times.)

Ooh!  And I also really liked a scene that reminded me of a nightmarish version of a big musical number in Pete’s Dragon.

The Negatives:
The Lighthouse is not for everyone. If you’re thinking to yourself, “What would be great fun for the whole family to see together over Thanksgiving?” this is not that movie.  If you’re considering going, watch the film’s trailers. They are extremely transparent. If you watch them, you’ll know exactly what kind of movie to expect. (One detail you may not get from the trailers is the film’s aspect ratio. This movie will look like a square in the center of your rectangular movie screen, the way full screen DVDs used to look–or still look if you happen to have a bunch of full screen DVDs you still watch. My husband and I loved this choice. He commented that it was perfect for emphasizing the claustrophobic environment of an isolated lighthouse. But it does make the movie look “weird,” so if you prefer your films sprawling and rectangular, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere.)

Because this is an atmospheric mood piece that becomes more intense as it progresses, the first part of the story is, of course, the weakest.  Dafoe is Dafoe is Dafoe, but Pattinson is much less interesting in the early scenes (though this probably would not be the case when rewatching the film).  If you don’t like it at first, give it a chance.  But if you’re an hour in and still dislike it, you’re probably never going to like it.  

Sometimes it is hard to know how you’re supposed to react.  A couple of times, I caught myself thinking, “This is just like when Mr. Burns and Homer are the only ones to find the cabin, and they’re stuck in there together except that’s supposed to be funny.  Wait is this supposed to be funny, too?”  (Honestly, if you ask me, that’s one of the funniest episodes of The Simpsons, but The Lighthouse contains many amusing episodes, too.  And sometimes it’s hard to tell if the whole thing is supposed to make you quake to the marrow, or if it’s all just some colossal joke.  The actors commit totally to the material and play these outrageous characters completely straight (as in they take themselves seriously, no comment on any homoerotic tensions).  That’s one of the things that makes it seem like a play by O’Neill or Williams, something with strange, larger-than-life characters tormented by inner demons (and each other).  But if you would like to know for sure how you’re intended to react to certain scenes, then this is not the movie for you.

Overall:

I thought The Lighthouse would be fun for Halloween, and it was.  Whether you would like it or not entirely depends on your reaction to the trailer.  Watch the two trailers and ask yourself, “Is this something I would enjoy almost two hours of?” because I assure you, if you go to the movie, that is what you will get.  Willem Dafoe deserves yet another Oscar nomination for his delightful work here.  Robert Pattinson more than allays fears that he was miscast as Batman.  And Jarin Blaschke’s spellbinding cinematography has inspired me to pursue a retirement career photographing lighthouses.  If you’re in the mood for something slow and creepy and strange, The Lighthouse might just make your Halloween.