The Lighthouse features two men, one “rock” and countless moments where one writer-director’s vision is brilliantly brought to life by two actors serving up an acting clinic.
It is manna from heaven when a period piece utilizes the bare bones nature of its times to showcase a no-frills emotive hurricane that constantly has viewers pondering what is real, what is madness and how that line is perpetually in motion.
Robert Eggers (The Witch), joined forces with his brother, Max Eggers, to collectively pen a script that gives both actors a myriad of opportunities to shine in a spotlight as bright as that which emanates from the top of the facility where they call home. The siblings also provide priceless opportunities for each performer to support. It is a supreme challenge to discern who is leading and who is following. The duo share a drunken dance at one point and, as is the case witnessing ballroom, determining who is leading is a blurry battle that mirrors the thespian calisthenics marveling us that mirror riding the largest wave known to man.
Robert Pattinson is Ephraim Winslow, and after something horrifying happened while working his previous work in logging, he takes his first stab as a lighthouse assistant to Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe). As the film commences, the duo are at the bow of a ship making their way through the choppy waters that greet them as The Lighthouse comes into view. Eggers and his go-to cinematographer, Jarin Blaschke, brilliantly chose to film his latest in black and white. The helmer also added to the skewed sense that permeates throughout with their shooting in the practically-square 1.19 aspect ratio. It is a screen size that has rarely been utilized since the 1930s and, in fact, the filmmaker had to utilize 90-year-old lenses on a digital camera. It stunningly produces a strong feel of mental dislocation.
Initially, Winslow is quiet and studious, albeit not-so-content with all of his tasks as laid out by Wake. The older lighthouse keeper is firmly in charge and that is made stunningly clear. A rule that clearly irks Winslow is that he is never to set foot in the light room—but seemingly has to do absolutely everything else on the rock (island). He also, doesn’t drink from fear of the regulations laid out by his employer. Wake pushes and pushes, eventually the two are toasting and letting it all hang out. Days, weeks … months go by—it was supposed to be a four-month stint, but our leads have lost track of time, and their grip of sanity.
Which will come first, a full on meltdown by one or both of these men or the ship that will be dispatched to provide them the next pair to do the four month shift? Throughout that entire spell, we too have no sense of time and it even reaches a point when days are gloomy from sacked-in fog where night and day seem to blur together as well.
Speaking of time, it is never quite established which decade The Lighthouse takes place. It feels like late 1800s, but it doesn’t matter specifically because time is so elusive on this island from every perspective possible.
Since I first saw Dafoe in To Live and Die in LA, his profound gifts have always entranced. After years of incredible work, often as the film’s villain, such as Spider-Man 2 opposite Tobey Maguire, it suddenly appears that the astute actor is being offered roles in stories that appeared to have been specifically for him. From The Florida Project (which earned him an Oscar nod), to At Eternity’s Gate (his turn as Vincent van Gogh (another Oscar nod!) and now The Lighthouse, it is as if he is becoming the new Meryl Streep! I joke, but if he is not nominated for some sort of Oscar for his latest, it will top our annual snubs and surprises list in both realms!
There are a trio of Dafoe monologues that mirror Shakespearean prose delivered by the finest Bard trained thespian. All three (for varying reasons) produced the same response, and it was surprising. This is serious stuff he’s extoling in gripping movie moments, and yet, I found myself smiling broader and broader as his wordplay crescendoed and decrescendoed and crescendoed again. The actor has always been an explosive addition to any production, but in the last two to three years—culminating with The Lighthouse (and look out for him in Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn later this year)—he has found a whole nether level.
Pattinson, fresh off the announcement that he will portray the title character in Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman, further illustrates why his genius seemed to have been masked by the horror show that was uttering hideous lines in those Twilight flicks. That franchise may have made him a household name, but the kid’s innate aptitude—who first grabbed our eye in Harry Potter—has always eclipsed everything he did in that vampire series by a solar system. What he achieves in The Lighthouse is not only go toe-to-toe with an Oscar nominee (who will win one day, let’s face that fact right now) but if acting was a heavyweight fight, he would have Dafoe on the ropes repeatedly. Winslow starts off mirroring a church mouse, yet by the conclusion, Pattinson more channels the iceberg that brought down the Titanic.
His performance should be the talk of the town, now it is early in Oscar season. It is sensational on so many levels. In that vein, The Lighthouse has firmly staked its claim to this year’s incarnation of The Favourite—in terms of spurring an Academy Award nomination discussion centered on who will score lead and supporting nods. The correct answer is they’re both leads. Period.
Lastly, A24 has done it again. There is something in the water over there that the boutique studio manages to deliver time and time again on the promise of indie cinema that some have worried has waned. When a film trailer starts with their logo, one does not even need to conclude the teaser. That movie belongs on your schedule, immediately.
Although they are entirely different cinematic experiences, leaving The Lighthouse reminded me of how I felt after exiting the theater when Memento concluded. Skewed does not even start to describe the mental headspace that washed over me like a double barreled thespian tsunami had just devoured my soul. The entire collective effort of the Eggers’ writing, Robert’s direction, the duos dynamic delivery, Blaschke’s cinematography and Mark Korven’s score all fused to firmly send the brightest of lights from this Lighthouse that could have lit up the entire planet.
Grade: A+