![ᴛʜᴇ [ʟᴏɴᴇ] ᴍᴇʀᴄᴜʀᴇᴀɴ](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6e7d83a79c4fbc152f70034c8e982bf9?rating=PG&size=48&border=&default=https%3A%2F%2Fs.ltrbxd.com%2Fstatic%2Fimg%2Favatar48.7a758b1e.png){kind=small}
ᴛʜᴇ [ʟᴏɴᴇ] ᴍᴇʀᴄᴜʀᴇᴀɴ’s review published on Letterboxd:
Shot in an aggressively stylized black-and-white 1.19:1 reminiscent of Movietone, Robert Eggers’ horror drama The Lighthouse (2019), which derives it’s name and premise from Edgar Allan Poe's hauntingly unfinished last work known as The Light-House (1849), attempts to wed the mythos of both Proteus and Prometheus with the mania brought on by confinement and isolation. The effects of which are amplified by an assault of sounds excellently complimented by Mark Korven’s ultralight score. A major paradigm shift from the dissonant chamber music of he and Eggers’ previous film, The VVitch (2015).
While there are some unbelievably great scenes In this film, like the piss pots and gulls, all of them get lost between the shards of mental illness that make up the bulk of this film. The Lighthouse (2019) also gets caught being a bit light-handed with its characters Greek connections. I really wanted so more Promethean lore to go with Willem Dafoe’s excellent Proteus, but instead I got a distractingly inconsistent accent from Robert Pattinson, similar to his performance in The King (2019).
The Lighthouse (2019) aims high but clearly comes up short after wasting a large amount of its energy on awkward masturbation and sexually encounter scenes that, honestly, were more memorable than some of the key moments of the film. So, to the uninitiated who haven’t seen the film, I will continue to describe The Lighthouse (2019) as “the story of an island with super loud foghorn and two lonely dudes blasting rope”.
