The Lighthouse

THE GIST: Two lighthouse keepers are dropped off on a remote island for a four-week stint at the local lighthouse. Wary of each other, their relationship wavers between friendly and downright hostile. When a rough, big storm delays the ferry meant to carry their replacements, their mental states, already vacillating, go in a tailspin.

Oh boy, so much to unpack... Let's start with the good: the acting (both Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are really into character), the score (Mark Korven's music is eerie and perfectly suited), and the cinematography (the film is gorgeously shot in rich black-and-white tones).

That brings me to the bad, which is that The Lighthouse is simply dreadful; I actually dreaded sitting in the theater until the end credits started to roll. I simply couldn't believe how bad this film turned out to be.

For one, these men clearly had to be halfway crazy to begin with, because it's simply not plausible that a person would go insane in just four weeks, especially since it's not like they're being tortured or are kept in isolation in a jail cell. For all we know both men are accustomed to hard labor, so it's hard to accept that their minds succumb so quickly and thoroughly to madness.

The other thing that doesn't work is that I didn't really care about what happened to either of them. They were not very sympathetic to begin with, and they made no strides towards that state either.

THE BOTTOM LINE: When I first heard about a black-and-white movie with these two actors I imagined a small independent film that might turn out to be a gem. Instead I got a lump of coal. Skip it.

Grade: 2