A Review of The Lighthouse

Director: Robert Eggers

Starring: Robert Pattinson & Willem Dafoe

These days I have found most movies to be lackluster and unoriginal. There are many who agree and possibly more who wouldn’t. Genres like psychological thrillers are strictly made to break the fourth wall and reach the audience indirectly. This film completed the task it assigned itself, or as most people say, “they understood the assignment.” Robert Pattinson delivered a truly frightened and isolated Thomas Howard. Although at times his accent shifted and changed, it has not tainted the film in any sort of negative way. Willem Dafoe executed an assertive yet lost Thomas Wake. Both Dafoe and Pattinson share a deprived experience even though we as the audience are accompanying them. The Lighthouse isn’t a film that always makes sense, but we as the audience begin to question what is real and what isn’t along with Howard. Are the seagulls truly haunting him? Was the siren real? Is Wake out to get him? As a viewer I wonder if the reason for both main characters having the same first name is symbolism that they are cut from the same cloth and are set upon the same fate of insanity and solitude. Robert Eggers has written, directed, and produced a film with flawless cinematography, simple dialogue, and strong similarities to The Shinning with the theme of isolation. The scene with Wake running with a limp and the axe in his hands reminds me vividly of Jack in the hotel running after Wendy or looking for Danny. It seems impossible to avoid repetition in any form of art, but the reuse of symbolism and themes in this film does not take away from the quality and surprise of what Eggers has created. The Lighthouse is constantly a reminder throughout the film, as if it is beating us, Thomas Howard, over the head with the fact that we are isolated and out alone at sea. Wake and Howard are together but are still isolated amongst themselves as the tide crashes for weeks or possibly months on end. They are not only driven insane by themselves, but by each other. This twistedly quiet yet loud film has drawn us into it to leave us off after about an hour and forty minutes with more questions than answers. Though, we know as the audience this is the end of the story, or do we?