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This review was originally published during 2019s Cannes Film Festival.
We are republishing the piece as the film hits theaters this weekend.
In fact, it might be even trippier thanThe Witch.
Whats the weirdest part of this incredibly weird film?
After the films Cannes premiere, we picked ourselves up off the floor to run down the contenders.
(Light spoilers follow.)
Rachel Handler:Where to begin?
Could it have been the two-minute scene of Robert Pattinson beating a seagull to death with his bare hands?
I laughed out loud.
Nate Jones:The seagulls do a lot of weird shit, for sure.
RH:Pattinsons entire performance is absolutely wild.
It reminds me of Jack Nicholson inThe Shining ax wielding included!
But slowly, he starts to turn.
He begins chugging liquor directly from the bottle on the job.
He masturbates with increasing fury, eventually ending up half-naked on the shanty floor, sobbing.
Time loses meaning; he punches his fist through a clock.
Chunks of vomit litter his once-debonair moustache.
During one particularly drunken evening, he screams at Dafoe about how badly he wants meat.
If I had a steak right now, he yells, I would fuck it!
(This line absolutely brought the house down.)
He slow dances intimately with Dafoe, then lambastes him for smelling like rotten foreskin and jism.
Pattinson has never been so far fromForks, Washington.
Hes constantly pissing and shitting and farting, and clearly having the time of his life doing so.
(Pattinsons response got another of our screenings big laughs.)
RH:We absolutely also need to talk about the scene I saw people buzzing about on Twitter.
Later, deep in the throes of madness, Pattinson spies a womans body splayed on the rocks.
He rushes toward her, pulling seaweed out of her mouth.
He traces down her stomach, then screams: Her entire lower body is covered in scales!
The mermaid bolts upright with a piercing shriek; when he runs away in terror, she cackles wildly.
But the weirdest is yet to come.
It looks a lot like a human vagina, except its massive and surrounded by scales.
Sort of a giant mussel, really.
Im actually relieved to know the answer to my eternal question: How do mermaids have sex?
NJ:I think a mermaid vagina is called a cloaca?
If that wont wake you up, nothing will.
