The Lighthouse has all the hallmarks of an Eggers movie in its first hour. Retro accents and dialogue, tight framing and cinematography and a plotline that oozes with mystery, horror and intrigue. Unfortunately, this is dropped shortly after those initial 60 minutes and is replaced with a scattershot, arthouse interpretation piece that seems to say everything all at once, while concluding with nothing at all. Sure, many will find enjoyment from pulling all of the possible interpretation threads this movie has to offer, ranging from Marxist analogies of society, homosexual oppression metaphors and Greek mythological pantomime, but what is left under all that feels like a waste of a build up, and a waste of Eggers clear talent for storytelling and film making.
That isn't to say that The Lighthouse is a bad movie, far from it, but those looking for something on the same page as The Witch should look elsewhere. Both leads give some cracking performances, especially Defoe with his two hearty speeches that left the room silent in awe during my two viewings. I just wish they'd had a better narrative structure to follow so said performances didn't feel so hollow by the end credits.
Eggers has a unique style that I adore, I just hope his next outing is against a more refined narrative, and doesn't fall back on throwing multiple ideas at the camera and asking the audience what they thought stuck. Personally a disappointment, but I still enjoyed the composition of the movie as a whole. Heres to the next one.