Things get odd when illness begins to befall those close to these men, and Souleiman’s said to have made a reappearance.
Connecting the two is Ada’s romance with Souleiman, one of the aforementioned workers, who’s among a group of them to set sail in the middle of the night for Spain. Set in Senegal’s capital Dakar, supernatural romantic drama Atlantics follows interweaving narratives-construction workers rail against not being paid to build a shining corporate tower above the impoverished city, and teenaged Ada prepares for her arranged marriage.
Somehow Imogen Poots puts up with it all, and then some. In a focused deadpan performance, Eisenberg brings to life what the willing recipient of ‘be a manly man’ bullshit would be like if it was all put into practice, while Alessandro Nivola slays as a sensei who embodies male grossness-never slipping as he delivers bonkers dialogue with a straight face. With a powerful cast of women led by Natalie Portman and an affecting, disorienting Geoff Barrow/Ben Salisbury score, Garland takes us on a psychedelic journey into body horror, transformation, depression and grief, with gorgeous visuals fleshing out Annihilation‘s tendencies towards Lovecraft and Ballard.Įxtremely dark satire of power, group dynamics, impotent fury and wantonly toxic masculinity sees wimpy (read: open to influence) Jesse Eisenberg join the wrong dojo after being attacked on the street. The former novelist tackles one hell of a tricky adaptation here in the form of the first installment in Jeff VanderMeer’s trippy Southern Reach trilogy, his writing bordering at times on the unfilmable. Alex Garland made a big splash with feature debut Ex Machina after writing in the sci-fi genre with Sunshine and Dredd.