The Lighthouse

Dir. Robert Eggers. 2019, 110 mins. DCP. With Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson. Set on a remote island off the coast of New England, two lighthouse keepers (Dafoe and Pattinson), trapped and isolated due to a seemingly never-ending storm, engage in an escalating battle of wills, as tensions boil over and mysterious forces (which may or may not be real) loom all around them. In this follow-up to his breakthrough debut The Witch, writer-director Robert Eggers doubles down on spooky period film Americana, borrowing heavily from Herman Melville, New England ghost stories and seafaring legends, and makes excellent use of two very game actors with faces made for cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s woodcut-worthy black and white imagery. Eggers’s The Lighthouse is a wild, visceral descent into madness, a spare two-hander with ideas and images to spare.