Makes one good point about sexual abuse but takes forever to make it. Undone by two bizarre twists at the end and being more arthouse than horror, though that’s been a something of an annoying trend. And way too many cameos. Christian Slater (True Romance, 1993) is easy to spot. But, wait, is that Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense, 1999) hiding behind that bushy beard? And Geena Davis (Thelma and Louise, 1991) as the klutzy personal assistant forever dropping bright red gift bags? And an immaculately spruced Kyle McLachlan (Dune, 1984)?
Buddies, for all I know, of star Channing Tatum, losing all the brownie points he accumulated for his cameo in Deadpool and Wolverine (2024) – although as with that picture he might just be showing an unwelcome predilection for the unintelligible. Or they could all be, out of the goodness of their hearts, just helping out novice director Zoe Kravitz. In general critics have been kind, possibly because it’s a movie debut, but more likely because the movie makes a point that sexually abused women and/or the victims of domestic abuse are likely to suppress or deliberately forget their experiences for the sake of keeping their relationship on an even keel or fear of not finding another.
It Ends With Us (2024) covered the same ground but at least took the trouble to fill it with properly-drawn characters. It’s not just that these people are ciphers and the set-up is fairy tale – poor woman meets billionaire who whisks her away to the holiday of a lifetime on a luxury exotic island – but that ordinary logic doesn’t seem to apply. I don’t mean the kind of logic required to cover up holes in the plot. But really standard stuff. Like, as one of my readers pointed out of Trap (2024), would the cops really set out to ensnare a serial killer in a concert hall packed with teenage kids?
Here, the flaw is simpler. Would women decide not to communicate? Would, they, beyond a shallow surface skein, just not want to know everything about the lives of the women they meet on this island or, alternatively, can’t wait to bore them to death with every detail of their own lives. And if they are so sedated, what’s the drug that manages to switch off that chatterbox tendency because, forgive this sexist notion, you could make a fortune selling it.
So, rather than go to all the bother of writing real characters, we are not so much in blink twice territory as rinse-and-repeat. We are shown endless episodes of the same scene, women in billowing white Greek-style gowns running across the lawn, raspberries being popped into fizzing champagne glasses, some nutjob raving on about the exquisite meals.
At the end of course you try to unravel it to discover the visual clues you assumed the director has dropped. But still you’ve no idea. Are these women all sedated by something in the raspberries, or by the flashbulb of the instamatic cameras, or the food, or by the bottles of scent left in every room? Maybe’s there’s something in the swimming pool. Or could it be the supposed snake venom drained from local snakes by a housekeeper who takes the Channing Tatum approach to her lines so that her every word is unintelligible. The venom that has somehow been so cleverly diluted that although it looks like toilet cleaner that appears to be a selling point as does that it tastes so vile you need to mix it with tequila.
And is there really only one lighter in the place? That a magnificent house on a desert island replete with servants and everything you ever need has come up short on the one element essential to light up all the dope smokes in constant supply. But, wait, we need a sole lighter and some stuff about everyone stealing it from its owner so that said owner Jess (Alia Shawkat) has to write her name on it so when she goes missing that’s the only proof she was ever here.
So, when billionaire Slater (Channing Tatum) whisks off waitperson Frida (Naomi Ackie) to a desert island she discovers they’re not alone, they are accompanied by his assorted buddies of varying ages and an equally assorted bunch of women all young and all gorgeous. You expect them to pair off and Frida is somewhat disappointed, even in this age of consent requiring to be expressly given not assumed, to find Slater making no moves beyond some old-fashioned hand-holding and neck nibbling.
So after you are bored rigid with the endless insight into how rich people live – drinking champagne, smoking joints, inhaling or swallowing whatever, eating food cooked to within an inch of its life – eventually, and that eventually is a hell of a long time coming, Frida smells a rat.
Spoiler alert – unknown to them because Slater has invented a forgetting drug – at night time they are raped or tied up to a tree (presumably with silken cords that leave no mark) or beaten up (presumably with the bag of oranges from The Grifters, 1990, because beyond a rare bruise no physical traces are left) and the reason they race across the grass during the day is some memory blip because that’s what they do at night to escape their tormentors.
Anyway, spoiler alert, the women get to turn the tables on the men so it’s a slaughterhouse at the end, some clearly taking inspiration from The Equalizer (2014) and turning a bottle opener into a weapon, others making do with knife or gun or rock or whatever phallic object comes to hand.
Anyways, spoiler alert and big point, women treated badly always come back for more. In a bizarre twist, this is Frida’s second time on the island, and bereft on the miainland of whatever amnesiac drug they’re taking on the island, has managed to bury any memory of the experience although she must occasionally wonder how she got that scar on her temple. In an even stupider twist, instead of handing Slater over to the authorities, he’s somehow in her power and she controls his billions. Sweet revenge, apparently.
Clocks in at what felt like a bum-numbing epic length but turned out to be only just over 100 minutes. However, if you had trimmed the arthouse excess you’d scarcely have enough to cobble together a television episode.
Seems to me there was quite a good drama in there somewhere revolving around Frida and Jess about having some fun while making ends meet – their East-West routine scores points – but that didn’t fly with the studios so the two engaging stars were thrown into this heavy-handed horror.
Makes a point. But once would be enough, thanks.
The Magnificent 60s 