The Lighthouse Reviews

Following ‘The Witch’ which had been critically successful, Robert Eggers came up with another directing follow-up which became even more popular so I was definitely eager to check it out. Concerning ‘The Witch’, I thought it was a decent watch but, to be honest, not much more than that. However, it was really neat to see how much progress Eggers made with this second directorial effort. And, yet, to be honest, it was still not completely sold though. Indeed, from the moment you see these two men showing up on this shore, you actually pretty know how it will all end. To make things worse, nothing much really happened afterwards, except seeing the two characters switching between being more or less friendly with each other and vastly antagonizing one another. Still, there is no denying that this movie was quite impressive to behold. First of all, there was the visual aspect. Indeed, the damned thing did look quite amazing and even though black-and-white movies are not so rare nowadays, here, it was a great approach and it perfectly fit the story and the tone chosen by Eggers. Then, the whole thing was seriously minimalistic, there were basically only two characters but the two actors involved both delivered some very strong performances, in fact some of the best performances of their respective careers. For Willem Dafoe, it is quite amazing that, after a career going over more than 4 decades and more than 100 movies, the guy still can come up with such powerful stuff and a couple of the speeches/soliloquies he made were just simply amazing and unforgettable (during one of these, he was actually getting buried alive, seriously, what an actor!). Concerning Pattinson, he had to face a Dafoe at the top of his game and he actually managed to be pretty much just as convincing as his colleague was. For the people still making fun of him because, 10 years ago, he did show up in the ‘Twilight’ franchise, well, if the guy keeps impressing like this, he might actually become one of the most interesting actors of his generation. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its limitations, it was still a rather spellbinding movie to behold and it is definitely worth a look and I can’t wait to see what Robert Eggers will do next.