The tension escalates to such a comically absurd degree that when it all boils over, Daniel Day-Lewis' savage beatdown of Paul Dano at the end of "There Will Be Blood" almost seems subdued and muted by comparison.
Without spoiling anything, the back and forth between these two actors is the final piece of the puzzle towards making this one of the greatest horror films of all-time. Dafoe, a grizzled old sea dog constitutionally incapable of using timely language, at the cost of making his speech so mysterious and antiquated as to be almost completely devoid of meaning, and Pattinson, in perhaps a parody of his bleary-eyed heartthrob origins, a completely insufferable young buck who's so smug and self-assured in his way of life that he flat out refuses to cooperate with his elderly cohort in any way and makes his own life harder in effect. Not enough can be said for Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, who play their respective characters exactly the way they ought to be played - exaggerated, almost grotesque abominations of the archetypes they're supposed to embody. Its absurdly simple premise invites all kinds of weird shenanigans, as its rudimentary narrative required some abnormal **** to possibly be interesting.
Very little is explained over the 2-hour runtime, yet very little needed to be explained. It's campiness works because this story clearly doesn't take itself seriously, taking as much time to chide and mock its characters and their questionable motives. The Lighthouse is in many ways an adult fever-dream episode of SpongeBob, with its twisted, absurd sense of comedic timing, weirdly-authentically nautical atmosphere, and a willingness to entertain the weird, scary, and abhorrent for the sake of memorability. It gets compared to SpongeBob Squarepants of all things, and the comparison is not unwarranted. Words cannot do justice to this film's sense of atmosphere. In essence, The Lighthouse is to the 2010's what "There Will Be Blood" was to the 2000's - unabashedly over-the-top, larger than life, often-times ham-fisted and downright corny, but utterly compelling, and more than sophisticated enough to justify its bizarre conceits. Moreover, The Lighthouse is far, far greater than the some of its parts. Not a moment of filmmaking is dull, unwarranted, and not one but of these actors' talents were put to waste. In essence, The Lighthouse is to the 2010's what "There Will Be Blood" Every aspect of The Lighthouse works. … ExpandĮvery aspect of The Lighthouse works. The few occasions during the moving in which my immersion broke were only because I found myself considering what must have been a truly brutal and demanding filming process. And as one might expect in a film about spending weeks on an island, sanity also comes into question. There are also themes of power and the desire for it, or at least to be respected as an equal. There is an interesting ebb and flow to their relationship in the movie as if discussing, can men - or at least heterosexual men - truly be intimate with each other? As the men become more intimate during their time cloistered on this island, they push each other away, perhaps by sheer masculinity, only to revisit a need for human connection yet again. Dafoe and Pattinson are riveting in their roles, giving career-best performances. The imagery feels instantly iconic, and the almost-square aspect ratio helps set the time period as well as add claustrophobia to the mix. Dafoe and Pattinson are riveting in their roles, Wow, what a masterpiece! Starting with the visuals, The Lighthouse is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Wow, what a masterpiece! Starting with the visuals, The Lighthouse is absolutely gorgeous to look at.
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