This movie is bad. It has a great IMDB score, but I think that's wholly undeserving. It's pretentious garbage. Robert Eggers has made two stinkers now, and some people are lapping these up. Meanwhile, I'd rather see Jordan Peele and Ari Aster continue to refine 'Artistic Suspense", since they've created the two strongest films in this new sub-genera with Get Out and Midsommar.

Like he did with the "The Witch", Eggers puts a ridiculous amount of research onscreen, here mid 20th century lighthouse rigmarole. The problem, which is the same "The Witch" has, is that the characters, plot, you know, the movie-ness of it all, is shoe-horned into a visual exhibit. There is no plot here. There are lines, weird visuals, allusions to insanity; none of it goes anywhere because it was an afterthought. Eggers next movie will probably be a silent film. He seems made for it.

The big injustice, is that Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are amazing actors. Even here, they do some justice to the horrible routine of it all. Dafoe has never looked crazier, and Robert Pattinson does a fair bit of physical transformation. It's all for naught though; these people appear to go crazy, or they don't. There might be a mermaid, but probably not. The sea-gull might have been possessed. Maybe. Ultimately, ambiguity is a clichéd plot device you use when you haven't figured out how things should fit together.

I doubt people really enjoyed this movie. It seems to be made for talking points.