5 Hidden Clues To Men's Big Twist You Might've Missed In Alex Garland's Horror Movie

Men, writer-director Alex Garland’s 2022 folk-horror film, divided audiences — but most viewers agreed that the film’s ending was incredibly shocking. Men’s twist ending, which reveals that Rory Kinnear’s characters, from the Green Man to Geoffrey the caretaker, are one and the same. Not only that, but each of Kinnear’s toxic character’s births the other, trapping Jessie Buckley’s Harper in a terrifying, seemingly inescapable cycle of births and rebirths. At the film’s start, the recently widowed Harper takes a trip to a remote cottage in the English countryside.

Harper’s partner, James (Paapa Essiedu), died by suicide, but it’s revealed that she had intended to divorce him because of his pattern of abusive behavior and manipulation. James’ emotional abuse turned into physical violence, pushing Harper to lock him out of their apartment. Moments later, he leaped from their balcony, and she watched as he was impaled on a fence below. The truly sickening image sticks with Harper just as much as it sticks with the audience. But that isn’t the only image in Alex Garland’s Men that foreshadows the horrors that unfold in the film’s ending.

Throughout her stay in the countryside, Harper meets a variety of odd men. First, Geoffrey, the owner of the holiday house, is the complete opposite of a caretaker. His often unsettling and unwelcoming presence immediately puts Harper — and the viewer — on edge. As the film progresses, Kinnear plays the village’s other men, including a lecherous vicar, a mean-spirited pub owner, a dangerous police officer, and even a malicious young boy. After taking a walk in the surrounding woods, Harper is also haunted by a naked man. Again, this character is played by Kinnear.

At its core, Men’s meaning centers on just how inescapable an abusive relationship can feel. Not only that, but it highlights Harper’s distrust of all men. That is, Kinnear’s many characters exhibit James’ toxic traits — taken to the extreme. In sharing a face, the men of the village have a kind of horrifying sameness. From the vicar’s inappropriate lust to the police officer’s behavior, Harper is “blamed” for all of it. For her, this blame, which comes at her from all the men she meets, interrogates the nature of her guilt over James’ death. While the images in Men might seem bizarre, many of them are clues that hint at the movie’s wild ending.

5 Men’s Dandelion Symbolism

The Brilliant Image Foreshadows The Movie’s Final Moments

Alex Garland’s Men perfectly foreshadows its unorthodox ending with one simple image: the dandelion. Able to reproduce asexually, the dandelion hints at Rory Kinnear’s many characters’ ability to birth one another. In one of Men’s more disturbing moments, Kinnear’s nude character accosts Harper and blows dandelion seeds in her face. The image is meant to stick with audiences as a clue: in the same way the dandelion effectively clones itself to reproduce, most of Men’s cast of characters are Kinnear. Intending to propagate Harper’s inherent distrust of Men, the Naked Man’s connection to the dandelion has many insightful meanings.

4 Men’s Repeated Imagery Hints At The Ending Birth Scene

From The Vicar’s Bench Scene To The Galaxy Slit In The Sky

While Alex Garland’s movieMen is very much a folk story — a metaphorical tale — it also contains an array of smaller symbols that build upon each other. The Annihilation director uses the visual language of cinema brilliantly to get the audience used to certain images. In fact, several key images are meant to prepare viewers for the film’s unhinged birthing sequence. The night sky above Harper’s cottage boasts a galaxy-like slit among its stars. Later, the lecherous vicar touches a slit on a bench, while the Naked Man lurks in a room with a hole above him. All of these images foreshadow the birth sequence.

3 The Echoes In Men’s Tunnel Sequence

A Folksy Siren Song Revels Harper Is To “Blame”

During an early sequence, Harper explores the grounds and surrounding woods. While walking through the eerie cluster of trees, she encounters an old tunnel. Amused by the way it echoes her voice, Harper enters the tunnel. Unnervingly, however, a figure appears at the other end. Engulfed in shadow, the figure blocks her path, forcing Harper to run back through the tunnel. Effectively, the man traps her. That alone is a hint at the movie’s larger themes, but the auditory qualities of the scene also allude to the idea of mythical sirens.

Known for luring men to their deaths, sirens were to blame in folktales — not unlike Harper. In fact, even her name conjures up the idea of a “harpy.” Aside from spotlighting many of Men’s themes, the tunnel sequence also recalls the visuals of the birthing sequence. At the end of a long tunnel, a man looms—waiting to enter the light. It’s certainly an instance of Garland’s repeated imagery, which helps elevate it from being a by-the-book scare.

2 The Hand In The Mail Slot

A Gruesome Moment Speaks To Men’s Duality

Toward the end of the film, the Naked Man tries to enter Harper’s cottage by force. While she blocks the entrances, he eventually sticks his hand through the door’s mail slot. Not only is the mail slot an echo of the galaxy slit and other birth-related imagery, but it leads to a rather gruesome encounter. Willing to give the Naked Man a second chance, Harper tries to take his hand, but things turn violent. To escape his grasp, Harper stabs the Naked Man, who pulls his arm out. However, the stuck knife splits his arm in two, creating a claw-like limb.

The Naked Man’s horrifying and rather distinct injury recalls the one James sustained when he leapt off the apartment building and landed on a fence post. Clearly, there’s a link between Kinnear’s men and James, which presents a clue to Men’s ending: James is the last man who is born in the disturbing sequence. The split arm also hints at the idea of reproduction in its own way. There’s a kind of duality to the image—a splitting of one into two that are still very much linked.

1 The Apple Imagery In Men Hints At Just Two Characters

Men’s Twisted Garden Of Eden

Geoffrey the groundskeeper isn’t shy about discussing the on-property apple tree and how it recalls the biblical Garden of Eden. While it may seem unrelated to Men’s ending, the story does, in fact, foreshadow the strange birthing moment. That is, in the Garden of Eden there are only two people at first—Adam and Eve. Similarly, the village is populated by Harper and the same man—that is, all of Rory Kinnear’s characters. In the “fall” story, Eve is similarly blamed for mankind’s fall from grace for wanting to ingest the fruit of knowledge.

The act, which is supposedly responsible for humankind’s first sin, recalls the guilt that Harper feels over James’ death. As Men illustrates, the tragic events weren’t Harper’s fault, even if the men want her to believe otherwise.

Men

From director Alex Garland comes Men, a horror film that follows a woman named Harper who seeks a place to rest and recover after being widowed. Arriving at a comfortable and sleepy British village in the country, she expects to find what she needs. What she finds, however, is a disturbing nightmare filled with strange men that seem to be stalking her – and are somehow unearthing painful memories of her past. Rory Kinnear portrays all of the men in the film in several outfits and makeup jobs for a unique twist.

Release Date

May 20, 2022

Studio(s)

A24

Distributor(s)

A24

Cast

Jessie Buckley , Paapa Essiedu , Rory Kinnear , Gayle Rankin

Runtime

100 minutes

Budget

$7.6 million