The Lighthouse (2019)

It’s just an albatross around Eggers’ neck

I’m gonna do something I swore I’d never do. I’m going to steal someone else’s words.

Granted, I’m stealing them from my husband, but theft is theft. And, frankly, he said it best.

“I can now say I’ve seen The Lighthouse and mean it.”

And honestly? That’s exactly how I feel…or think, really. I don’t really feel much of anything after my first viewing of the black-and-white Eggers ode to solitude, insanity, and mermaid vulvas.

It wasn’t bad. But I don’t think it was good, either.

Both stars were excellent, as has come to be expected of both Willem DaFoe and Robert Pattinson (tell 18 year old me I wrote that sentence–I dare you). 

The story centers around the slow-burn descent into madness after a lighthouse keeper and his second are marooned on their tiny island in the middle of a fierce storm. As food dwindles, the mind addles. Pattinson’s character (who shares a first name with DaFoe’s, so I’ll just refer to them by their real names) starts off shaky even in the sunlight. As security after security is washed out to sea, Pattinson descends into madness…maybe. Or maybe DaFoe was always a tentacled sea monster. It’s unclear–and that’s kind of the point. Maybe. Or maybe it isn’t.

Uncertainty plagues this story, and I haven’t yet figured out if it’s a strength of storytelling or a weakness of yet another big name who isn’t told “no” enough. If it’s the former, then it’s a masterwork, with the uncertainty the audience feels mirroring the uncertainty the two characters feel. Are they safe with each other? Are they going to survive? Why were they marooned (probably the storm, but maybe it was the gull)?

Or, if it’s the latter–and given the final Promethian scenery, I think it is–then its yet another movie that thinks great actors and a black and white film makes for good writing when actually, it’s just lazy.

And maybe that’s where The Lighthouse falters. It thinks itself a gull, with the soul of sailors on its wings when it’s really another seabird altogether.

Can I sink my teeth into it? It’s an albatross. There might be a deeper meaning that I can’t see, but I kind of regret eating it.