The Lighthouse
Year: 2019
Rating: R
Length: 109 minutes / 1.82 hours
When Oscar season rolled around a few years ago, I heard a lot of buzz about an artsy film known as The Lighthouse (2019). Years later, I finally found the time to sit down and watch it on Amazon Prime. Now I understand why the Academy didn’t nominate this film for Best Picture. It’s weird. I legitimately tried to figure out what was going on but gave up when things just spiraled into chaos. I have a suspicion that a key moment in the film resulted in a character’s death and that the remainder all takes place in some sort of purgatory, but that’s the best explanation I can give at the moment.
For a film that features two actors for almost the entire runtime, I have to say that Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson make this movie something to see at least once. In fact, I’m still half-certain that Willem Dafoe wasn’t even acting in this movie, as his portrayal of a crazy lighthouse keeper was too on-the-nose to be anything but authentic. Pattinson’s performance was a perfect counterpoint to Dafoe’s, even if both were ultimately disturbing.
I understand that not every movie needs a comprehendible ending that wraps everything up into a nice little conclusion. Still, a little more of something would have been nice given how everything collapsed into a quagmire of insanity. And perhaps that was the point. As many of us have experienced over the last few years, isolation is a hell of an existence. When there’s no way out and no way to know when the isolation will end, things are bound to get crazy. Just not H.P. Lovecraft-style crazy.
Some excellent performances in a total “what the heck?” film, I give The Lighthouse 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
