 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 2019 film the lighthouse. It's an 824 film So for anyone who may be watching this who didn't see it yet. I am gonna do spoilers But first I'll just tell you before you stop the video Definitely see it. I think it's definitely worth it But it is an 824 film and I know a lot of people don't like it because with their horror films typically They're kind of slow to get going But then they have all the payoff towards the end. This film is very much like that I actually was kind of like a little bit It's slow for about the first hour and then the last like 50 minutes of it or so I think it's a little less than that is is good like that's when the stuff really really ramps up So it's worth it in my opinion But if you haven't seen it yet, just stop here go watch it then come back because I'm doing spoilers Because this is a film that kind of needs it. So like I said, it's a 2019 film by a 24 It was directed by Robert Eggers who most people remember from The Witch which Yet another device of film. That's another 824 film And it's another one where people either really liked it or really hated it pretty much Because it's slow and everything comes at the end much like the lighthouse So I kind of feel that it's a you either like Robert Eggers Or you don't kind of like the whole Ari Aster thing with hereditary and mid-summer you either like him or you don't like him, so This was written by Robert Eggers and his brother Max Eggers Which apparently Max started writing the script by himself at first and he wanted to base it a lot on the egg-grown-po Story the lighthouse now as he went on He got kind of stuck and then Robert Eggers got involved and helped him out with the script And then at that point it started to diverge a lot from the egg-grown-po story So in the beginning it was supposed to be an egg-grown-po story and ended up not being because there's so much Else to it basically It starts Robert Pattinson, which I know a lot of people don't like Robert Pattinson But I gotta be honest he did a very good job in this film I have a lot of respect for that guy just because someone plays like a teen heartthrob Doesn't mean that they can't do other roles that's been seen many times Everyone needs to remember when everyone was like ooh Heath Ledger is the Joker and now people cite Heath Ledger's Joker as the best Incarnation of the Joker. I know some people are probably already putting a comment down there disagreeing saying no Cesar Romero or You know Joaquin Phoenix or whoever but Jack Nicholson. I love Jack Nicholson, but yes Heath Ledger But my point being don't shut down because oh, it's Robert Pattinson He's a good actor and he does a great job in this and you wouldn't know he was in Twilight based on his performance So he is opposite Willem Dafoe in this and as good as Robert Pattinson was I thought Willem Dafoe was even better That guy's always good in everything. I see him in I'm actually looking at a picture of him right now I have a boondock Saints poster right over there and Willem Dafoe's on it Love his performance in that and I loved his performance in the lighthouse. Oh my gosh Did he play some like crazy old coot to like a tee I thought Well, I mean if you're this far, you know what I'm talking about in the review, you know, my goodness So they had a four million dollar budget for this film and surprisingly enough it made $18 million so this is a big cash cow for a 24, which is super awesome I kind of figured a film like this wouldn't bring in money like that because You know if anyone's seen a trailer for it. It's very old-timey. It's a period piece it's just two people in a lighthouse obviously and You know it looks boring because it's in black and white on top of that It's not in widescreen which they you know made that choice to make it look even more from the period which The why like I understand like changing it from like false from like widescreen to fullscreen like that's fine I'm back and forth on the black and white It took me a little bit of time to get used to that because I actually thought that the film would have been a lot Better in color and I understand that like doing in black and white you can show shadows More drastically and it's more bleak looking in a sense And you know there is something to be said about kind of the story itself being very bleak and kind of having all the color leached out of these two men's lives So that kind of you know represents that but you can do it in color and still you know make it very bleak You know you downplay a lot of the colors you make it very look very bluish tones And you can do just as well and actually would be better because you can see more because there are a lot of moments in this film where I felt like the shadows were so intense and in such weird ways that I wanted to see more of what was going on And I just couldn't so I didn't really like the choice of black and white But I will say that there are certain shots That looked more pretty more interesting more artistic because it was in black and white so it's kind of a trade-off so I'd say about halfway through the film I got used to the black and white and was like okay, this is fine But up until then I was like just why wasn't in color, but you know it ended up being not a big issue So apparently after Eggers did the witch Willem Dafoe saw it and was a huge fan of it. He emailed Robert Eggers and said look Big fan of the witch loved it He kind of gushed to him and he was like look if you want to work together in the future I would be honored to work with you and that's where willem Dafoe came in with this film Because Robert Eggers was like oh willem Dafoe said he'd work with me and who doesn't want to work with willem Dafoe. I Would I would definitely work with him Yeah, it's already talked about that so they actually built a working lighthouse for this which is cool And kind of crazy to think about they built it in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada and apparently the weather was pretty tough and that made it pretty pretty hard to Do the production in general because of the weather but also get the right shots because of the weather affecting things It feels claustrophobic the way the camera work is not on the outside of the lighthouse, but certainly on the inside I feel like it felt cramped like there were times I was watching and there was like the movement by the camera And it felt like it was just trying to slightly move with a little amount of space that they could move in That's just kind of what it felt like to me It starts with the very ominous music Which I believe a portion of the music ends up being that horn at the lighthouse which that goes on repeatedly Which you know, I think it it helps to kind of drive home kind of that the Annoyingness of that sound that like if you're working there if you're Rubberpats that are willing to foes characters and you're working there like you're hearing that all the time That would really get to you or maybe it's a situation where you just get used to it and it just used end up blocking it out but Starting with the very ominous music. I thought It gave you kind of like a feeling of like baseline uneasiness going into the film Which I think was helpful because everything about the situation is kind of baseline uneasiness, you know the the isolation The weather being rough they're not being really anything to do but chores basically and Robert Pattinson's character going into being with this dude who's not very nice at all He just wants to treat him like a peasant and tell him everything to do and lord over him Basically and throw insults and he bullies them a lot to be honest so yeah the silent journey to the lighthouse of Pattinson's character conveys Isolation and an overall drab environment. It's very dark both the characters walk in silence and they never end up smiling So I think it's kind of a good setup to show you that even before things Drag on before things get crazy before things get contentious They're not happy in the first place So you see the attitudes are being brought to the table in the first place before these two individuals even meet each other And they're not good. It's all negativity from the beginning. Where are you gonna go from there? I mean most likely it's even further downhill because it's not like they're At a place that is happy that has things that can you can do to make you happier and you're just doing hard labor I mean, it's it's terrible So the the relationships terrible from the start I wrote down You because really you can only take so much bullying and kind of an outright curmudgeonly attitude and you know willing to foe does that Unbelievably well as wake he does such a great job And I'll just call Pattinson's character Winslow because that's what he calls himself in the beginning even though I know he's Tom Howard Actually because he killed Winslow But uh, but yeah willing to foes did such a good job is like this curmudgeonly old jerk who just likes to bully That's so good The camera going up the center of the lighthouse, which was a pretty early on shot It's just like panning all the way up the the spire basically Really cool really good looking shot and that was kind of one of those where it's in black and white And I think it makes it look even a little bit better because it's in black and white So like I said, there are kind of some of those scenes where it worked better in black and white So you get the feeling that wake is off his rocker early on in this film when he's staring into the light and toasting it You see his kind of relationship with the light at the top of the lighthouse and He even says um, yeah, he says later, uh, that the last guy lost his mind and thought there was magic in the light But I feel like that was him and maybe the last guy did that as well but I feel like it starts to feel like To the audience that oh man, maybe that wasn't the last guy Maybe it's wake because when Patton when uh, Winslow is on the outside and he's looking up and he kind of sees him standing in there like with his arms spread out just like I don't even know with the light like it looks like he was trying to like hug the light or something like that but you get these images of him kind of like Having a religious experience with the light almost and just like bathing in it And I don't know maybe part of that is because they didn't get a whole lot of sun I think it's mainly because he's crazy and that's one of the big things at the heart of this film is obviously Who's crazy? Is anyone crazy like is there an actual mental illness going on with either of these characters or both of these characters Or is it a situation where it's all situational and just the isolation and the bad attitudes and the terrible relationships and all the booze Just takes them down that path that that makes them kind of crazy Even though there's not like a diagnosable mental illness. So it raises a lot of questions like that Needless to say everything's bad though I mean, it's just like bad upon bad upon bad And I think that actually probably what's playing at play in this is all of the things there's mental illness There's alcoholism. There's you know, terrible negative attitudes. There's bullying There's you know disrespect towards one another because you know wake treats Winslow like he owns him You know, it's it's all these issues and it kind of reminds me of how you know What would it be like if it's it's an a society of just two people Or a very small society like that's what happens We live in a very large society and for that reason, they're you know Social norms that are created and people feel like they need to stick to certain norms and everything But what happens if it's just two people and there there isn't really any sort of law There aren't really any rules. I mean, you know about what you should be doing, but you know rations get low The person who well the alcoholic or the both the alcoholics Run out of booze, you know, these things put stress on the people and their relationships And then what happens when there isn't like a social norm There isn't anyone to step in and mediate or make things better. So I think that's That's kind of what we're looking at here So but I'll I'll say a little bit more about that later I do think the heavy-handed music in this is a bit over the top Because it kind of makes it seem like even every little mundane thing that that they're doing in the film is like and I'm like You know Pull it back pull it back like you can do a little bit of that but but how heavy it is And how much of it there is Early on at least like bring it in later when things are getting crazy fine But you don't need to signal to us that much early on that it's going to be Terrible and it's going to get crazy. We're watching the film. We know that it's a horror film. We know that so, you know Wake says how boredom makes men violent and the only thing that calms them is drink so I I do believe that That's his attitude because that's how he seems to live like he deals with being there and any sort of Frustrations by just drinking like that's his existence. He is an alcoholic, obviously Now windslow tries to not go there because early on he refuses drink But eventually he does do it and he just goes all in on the drink And then at that point they're both taking from the same rations And then it becomes a competition and that just makes things worse and you know His his his idea of you know making guy making men more passive with drink Yeah, that can happen But when it's just constant constant constant it actually goes the opposite direction and that's what you end up seeing in this film So him making that statement early on is kind of a statement of this is where I am baseline I got a drink to like not be a total piece of garbage Even though I am still total piece of garbage, but Yeah Because the mermaid dream seems so real You don't believe that the tentacle wins low season in the light area of the lighthouse is actually real So I think that At certain points you could kind of view it as is there something supernatural going on here But I really don't think there is at any point in this. I think it plays to You know going a little crazy because you're isolated from people and you're overworked and you've been drinking a lot And also, you know, like I was saying before maybe there's an undiagnosed mental illness going on there too So I think by having the mermaid dream and how realistic it seemed And then you see like the tentacle and some of those other things The filmmaker Eggers has set it up to to say okay. It's this is very realistic Therefore, it's not actually real later on when you see other things like this. This is also in his mind But then there's a question of how much is in his mind because you as an audience members start to see that it's Two very unreliable characters Perspective wise, you know, you know, you're mainly seeing it from Winslow's perspective But if you're also seeing it at times kind of from wake's perspective Neither of them end up feeling very reliable in the early in the early portions of it You think that oh Winslow clearly has has everything together and wake is like this crazy alcoholic jerk But then that starts to change a little bit as you go on and you're questioning everything Especially when they're in the moments where wake is questioning what Winslow has just said happened Or what we see as an audience happen like a perfect moment is when Winslow's running out to the dinghy and wake comes out and smashes it up with an axe now They run back into the house and Winslow says that that just happened But then wake says no, you're the one who ran after me and smashed that up and you're kind of like Who's right though because at that point You've already seen many instances where Winslow is losing it and you've already seen many instances where he thinks one thing And it's another way So you're starting to question it too and you don't even know what to believe Which makes you as an audience member a little bit crazy You just can't I don't know. It's crazy. I think it works though Winslow teaching his breaking point Uh with or i'm sorry teaching reaching. Sorry Winslow reaching his breaking point with the birds and brutally killing one gives the idea he could easily do it To wake it shows him in a moment of just getting so frustrated that he grabs a bird And he just beats it to death by swinging it which is a brutal moment in the film But that sets up the president to say if he's pushed far enough He will kill And in this instance, it's a bird if he's pushed more it could be a human being so it kind of Signals that to the audience And that's where it goes obviously It seems Winslow's mind gets set on the mermaid because of the figure he discovered when he first got there So I think that was kind of set up of showing him, you know finding it and holding it close to himself I think that was kind of a showing of It's in his subconscious. So when he Starts perseverating on that and having these daydreams and nightmares and stuff Built around it. It's because it was subconsciously planted it into his head. It's not from nowhere Yeah, and then you know things that Wake talks about end up showing up too because he had talked to him about You know, I think like a an octopus before about tentacles at least in some of his stories and that ends up showing up So it's You know things just embed themselves in his head and then as he's kind of losing it. They start resurfacing as he's very vivid um hallucinations kind of Winslow when Lindsay Winslow starts questioning the events of what happened in the past week You start to wonder if Wake is crazy Winslow is crazy or are they both crazy? Winslow could have been in an alcoholic haze Uh, yeah that moment where it's like it's been a week And he's just like what? It seems like maybe that was an alcoholic haze thing because they do show you that he's been drinking while he's been working So he could just be like blacking out consistently and have no idea. You know what? You know what time has passed now It's kind of twofold it seems because if someone's continually drinking, you know an alcoholic They just end up kind of losing time but also if you're isolated And just doing stuff that's boring stuff that's backbreaking Not having interaction not having fun um That can make you confuse as to what day it is and how much time has passed as well It's kind of funny when Winslow just gives in and says all right. Have it your way. I like your cooking I think he realized it wasn't worth the trouble Uh to keep arguing but I think so that's kind of like a funny moment But it's also a telling moment because it shows the lengths that Wake is willing to go to To prove that he's right about something or to make Um Winslow take back what he said It it just goes to show that neither one of these individuals will will really back down from anything Um, although, you know early on Winslow does but obviously that becomes different later on when he becomes very belligerent potentially mentally ill The random farts from Wake Are kind of a welcome reprieve from tension and they end up playing into things later when You know Winslow is just going off about how much he hates him and he's like and you're farts You're incessant farts. It's pretty funny The scene where Winslow was beating off Really crazy scene For many reasons really crazy scene Um, yeah, no, it's disturbing and crazy The further down the two spiral The harder they hit the boost to drown out the messed up feelings and nightmares But that makes their relationship and ability to get things done go downhill Obviously when you're drunk all the time, I mean, they're doing that to deal with the frustrations and the emotions But when you're doing that, you're not going to be able to get as much work done which makes other things an issue You're also going through the rations faster. They're also Chipping away at the foundation of the relationship relationship, which wasn't very strong in the first place I mean Wake really stays the same person pretty much the whole time Winslow is the only one who actually changes and baseline Wake is a terrible person who just pushes pushes pushes So um in order for things to be okay You're going to need wake to become a better person Which wasn't going to happen or Winslow to maintain Being the person he was when he showed up, which obviously doesn't happen I laugh when they just randomly started throwing punches at each other And there were actually a few of those types of moments Where I just started laughing when they were kind of going at it or yelling at each other Because I think it came off as like a little bit comedic I know something I knew something was amiss when Winslow reacted to Wake's first name When Wake says his first name is Tom There's a bit of a pause and a recognition of something going on Um from Winslow so at that moment I knew there was something else to Winslow because of how they Incorporated that into the film and then obviously you find out later that He killed the actual Winslow because he couldn't get a job and he's like this guy's a job lined up I'm going to kill this dude and I'm going to start a new life basically because otherwise how am I going to become anything? so I think them both being named Tom was supposed to symbolize the confusion Of watching this film and not knowing who did what at certain points because neither character's perspective is reliable So I think it was kind of this representation of they're both named Tom. Which Tom are you going to believe? Are you going to believe Tom or are you going to believe Tom? You know, it's like that kind of conversation where people are confused and it's like, oh, I saw Tom the other day Oh, yeah, but I also saw Tom I'm like, which time are you talking about in which instance? Like I felt like the film was kind of supposed to be like that. It's like did Tom do it or did Tom do it? Yeah, there's a cool shot symbolizing the tempest outside and And inside with the rocking lantern that's going on and then a panning back of the camera That goes outside of the open door and then you see kind of all the the storm going on on the outside So I thought that was a really cool Showing of symbolism showing like there are tempests there Like there's a tempest on the inside and a tempest on the outside obviously different One is nature made one is man made but yeah When they fully reveal the light it looks really cool The design of the light at the top of the lighthouse was really cool And it was impactful when you finally see it because everything's so dark throughout the thing And the seagulls get their revenge in the end, which I was like Good for them, you know, Robert Pattinson is naked and dying on the rocks and one lands and poops on him like pretty much immediately And it goes back to what wake was saying you don't kill seagulls. They are the souls of past on sailors Um, I don't think he says sailors in particular, but men have passed on men. So Hey So I guess they both become seagulls in the end in a way and actually maybe that's it because at that point Wake is dead. So maybe that's wake as a seagull pooping on Winslow Shooting uh, yeah, I already talked about that When isolated this is my my final thought on the film when isolated the world you're in becomes its own environment That reflects how you perceive it and interact with it. The two characters were both negative We're both negative both drunk and both crazy, which just spun everything out of control This is a a look at you know, your reality your perspective on things is all dictated on with what your environment is At any given time now just think about the current situations with the whole covid 19 thing You know your world used to be a lot bigger my world Everyone's world used to be a lot bigger because we used to go further for vacations We used to you know, see more people face to face uh the feeling of of How you live and who you are as a person and what your world is Changes when you're staying at home. You're only dealing with a few people. You're not going very far So it's like macrocosm versus microcosm And you act differently within those things, especially when it's something like with the lighthouse Where it's a severe microcosm where it's just these two guys in a very cramped space With not a whole lot of sunlight and only things to do like drink talk to each other and they don't even like each other And do work do hard work Um, those are the types of things. They're just gonna beat you down beat you down beat you down So, uh had they been in a different place like the two of them working on a tropical island where you can get plenty of sun And you know, maybe they had board games and card games there and other people around to talk to Everything would have played out 100 differently. Well, not necessarily because it's a movie But you know, it may have you know in in real life. So It's just all about what's your life situation? What attitude are you bringing to it? How are you perceiving things? What other Uh factors get thrown in there the booze Potential mental illness the hardships of dealing with the storm, you know, all those things The low rations, uh, so it's kind of about like eliciting responses Based off nature based off personal situations based off choices all that type of stuff. So, um, Yeah, this is a big one to talk about. So please feel free to put some comments down there Go crazy with it. I didn't think this was like the most amazing film. I've ever seen I've seen other a 24 films I like more, but this is really good. I really do appreciate it. So out of five stars half stars in play I'm gonna give it a very solid four star rating. I did quite like it. I think it's well done And like I said Pattinson did a really good job to foe didn't outstanding job Uh, really enjoyed it. So yeah, put some comments there down there on your thoughts but do me a quick favor hit that subscribe button and, um, That's your best way to repay me because I'm not making money doing this or anything I'm just putting content out there. So if you do me that quick favor, I would really appreciate that And if you've already subscribed, uh, hit that thumbs up Just let me know you're still watching and you still like what's going on But at any rate, if you have subscribed or you're going to subscribe, make sure you hit the notification bell So you know when I'm dropping new videos, but also Doing my live streams because That'll it'll give you an indicator for that. So Thank you, regardless and until next time keep it brutal