Movie Series Review - Films Directed by Alex Garland (excluding Annihilation)

 

Alex Garland is a guy who has been around for a little while. The name may not sound familiar, but he is one of a few people behind some well known, underrated films and at least one video game. He wrote the screenplay for two Danny Boyle films and one of my all-time favourite films, the hugely underrated and sequel worthy Dredd. He was also a story supervisor for the hated yet still played DmC: Devil May Cry (which could very well be down to the modding community if nothing else) and since 2014, he has been directing films. I have previously reviewed his Netflix film Annihilation and with his most recent film having now come out, I felt it was time to review not just that film, but some other films that he worked on too (directed or otherwise). So let's see what we got from this guy:

Never Let Me Go

Our first film, in which Garland wrote the screenplay for, is a dystopian romantic tragedy film set in an alternative history. The film begins with a short narrative that implies that a breakthrough happened in 1952 in which we learn that the lifespan of a human being can extend beyond 100 years. The film centres on three characters called Kathy H (played by Carey Mulligan), Ruth C (played by Keira Knightley) and Tommy D (played by Andrew Garfield) who all spent their childhood at a boarding school called Hailsham. They are encouraged to explore the world of art, but not before learning of their fate to be organ donors and die. Despite this dismissed revelation, the three become best friends and as time goes on, they must come to terms with their fates and other things going on too. As a film based on a novel that Garland did a screenplay of, it's pretty good. It's like many medical films that tackle real things such as organ donors in this case, but makes it interesting by adding some dystopian features on top of the overused romantic side of the story which is often seen in these films. I like the actors, who all perform their parts really well, and I think this was released long before Garfield became the second big screen Spider-Man. With this film really showing his acting ability. The same with the others too. Good work from Mr. Garland and all involved. 9/10

Ex Machina

The second film, in which Garland directed in his directorial debut, sees a programmer for the in-film dominant search engine Blue Book called Caleb Smith (played by Domhnall Gleeson), win an in-office contest to visit the luxurious isolated home of the company's CEO Nathan Bateman (played by Oscar Issac) for a week. Caleb arrives to his home and learns that Nathan is not alone as he has a servant who he claims doesn't speak any English and is working on a gynoid with artificial intelligence whom he has called Ava (played by Alicia Vikander). Nathan tasks Caleb with doing the Turing Test with Ava to determine if Ava is genuinely capable of thought and consciousness, with the intent of having her pass if Caleb forgets that she is not human. One thing leads to another, and only time will tell on who can be trusted and whether Ava should be allowed freedom. For what it is, it is a pretty darn good film. Very peaceful for the most part, but you soon learn that things aren't quite as they seem as time moves on. Everyone plays their parts well, it has beautiful scenery and although it's a bit of a predictable film (me having seen many films and played a few video games about robots wanting freedom from their captors), it's alright for what it is and helps make Garland good at what he does. 9/10

Men

Now we come to his latest directed film, which is hard to talk about without spoiling too much. All I will say is that it's about a widower called Harper Marlowe (played by Jessie Buckley) who, still uncomfortable about what happened to her husband James (played by Paapa Essiedu), decides to spend two weeks in a country based house she rented in the village of Cotson. There she is greeted by the landlord and owner Geoffrey (played by Rory Kinnear) who does his "show around, and you can do this, but don't do that" routine as all people like him would do and leaves her too it. As she spends time there, she soon realizes that things aren't quite as they seem when the men of the village start to act strange and stalker like. That's pretty much all I can really say without giving too much away. It's definitely a horror in every sense of the world and uses a real life issue of men stalking women as the basis of the narrative, even if it's too sexist of a thing to do. The same can be said for the title, and I think Kinnear only plays most of the men in the film as a means for the audience to see how creepy it all is. Also, when doing some research, there are some religious themes being explored here too, such as the Green Man and that's all I will say on that. The ending is best described as pretty f**ked up when you don't know much about the themes that the film has. But apart from that, it's a pretty scary film about a real issue which is then turned up a notch to give us something scary and something pretty messed up too. 7/10

Alex Garland is coming along well as a person who works on films and other stuff, and these films are just some of the things he has made so far. There's definitely more of his work out there that I haven't dared touch yet, but from what I have seen and played of his so far, he's definitely one to watch for sure. 8/10