directed by Panos Cosmatos
written by Panos Cosmatos, Aaron Stewart-Ahn
For several years now, Nicolas Cage has been largely banished from mainstream cinema. Since 2013's Joe and excepting the occasional Paul Schrader joint, the Oscar-winning, internet-beloved actor has been largely relegated to direct-to-video dreck, and low-budget trifles. Recently, however, that's begun to change, with Mom and Dad receiving a cult following out of TIFF 2017, and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies casting him as none other than Superman himself.
But neither of those movies has accumulated as much momentum as Mandy, Panos Cosmatos's mesmerizing, intensely stylized, frequently absurd evocation of both B-movie pulp and prog-rock grandiosity. Cosmatos blends self-serious, droning aesthetic experimentation with pandering machismo, creating a hallucinatory, genuinely transporting landscape all in the service of watching Nic Cage kill biker lizardmen and druggie cultists. This film's perverse blend of highbrow stylings and lowbrow content marks it as perfect cult film material.
Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and his wife Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) live an idyllic life in an unspecific wilderness. Meanwhile, Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) is leading a family cult of drugged-up pseudo-Christians who kidnap women and worship demon bikers. Soon, they summon those demons to earth and kidnap both Mandy and Miller, setting off a series of events which leads to Miller taking out his revenge on Jeremiah and his family.
For a movie about demon bikers, Mandy sure does take a while to get going. The title card doesn't pop up until literally halfway through. All of that setup I just mentioned takes up a whole hour of the movie's running time, and much of the early setup could easily have been jettisoned in favour of a lean, mean B-movie. A lot of the information here is completely irrelevant: neither Mandy's nor Miller's day job actually has much bearing on the plot, nor are the minutiae of their backstories. And yet, that early context provides this quite simple story with a degree of emotional resonance, however small it may be. Cage and Riseborough have solid chemistry, and what we learn about them has a portentuous atmosphere which smoothly transitions to the horrific scenes that kick off the plot.
Furthermore, the film's hallucinogenic visual style keeps the proceedings captivating even before the action truly begins. For what is essentially a B-movie, the cinematography is surprisingly beautiful, bathing its violence in imposing darkness and vivid colour. This is paired with a droning synth score which is peculiarly distant from the rock music which clearly inspired the film, but which nonetheless provides a deeply evocative image of an uncompromise descent into hell. The images here are consistently astonishing, and certain sequences are gloriously surreal, including various drug trips and, of all things, intermittent animated sequences.
Indeed, Cosmatos' aesthetic is so deliberate and precise as to appear pointedly symbolic, which is odd for such a simple narrative. At its heart, this is really just a straightforward revenge story stretched into a glorious two-hour music video, and yet certain themes do emerge through visual cues: a cursed relationship, a lost paradise, and of course, the aforementioned descent into hell. Just when it's all seeming a little too serious for its own good, though, the film will throw in some new dose of absurdity. The villains are a biker gang, Cage spends the entire second half going completely nuts, and all of the kills are absolutely ridiculous. A lot of this comes from "badass" cliches, but the film has a great sense for how to frame these scenes for maximum absurdity.
The performances are particularly delightful, too. Cage spends the entire second half going completely nuts, and most of the film is centred on his performance, but Riseborough also elevates the first half. Both are relatively subdued early on, and convey their relationship and pain in believable ways, and while Riseborough doesn't get the opportunity to go as crazy as Cage, she does have the last laugh in her final scene. You'll see what I mean. Meanwhile, Roache is equal parts charismatic and goofy, sliding smoothly between histrionics and nonsensical preaching, and altogether providing an enjoyable presence for his character.
And of course, the carnage is truly gruesome, taking up the majority of the second half without compromising the hypnotic pace and style. Indeed, it's the clash between the deliberate aesthetic and the lowbrow subject matter which provides much of the fun here. It's a jarring dichotomy, but an intentional one, resulting in an effect not unlike the cover of a metal or prog-rock album. The film's frequent moments of hilarity are derived partially from genuinely strong comic timing and a strong eye for silly imagery, but that tonal contrast is a large part of it as well. It's a thrilling, comical nightmare, a uniquely stylized midnight movie with the eye of a painter.
Mandy is clearly a niche film, too dumb and violent for the highbrow crowd and yet too ponderous for the lowbrow crowd. And yet there's something truly captivating about its unique brand of insanity, and schlock deserves this kind of precise craftmanship and structural experimentation just as much as more dignified films. It's a gorgeous movie about scenery-chewing Nicolas Cage fighting demons, and aside from being arguably overlong, it's a particularly good version of that. This film doesn't quite fit into any of the boxes people will expect of it, and it's kind of awesome.
8/10
+ Frequently hilarious, with Nic Cage at his hammiest.
+ Gorgeous, precise aesthetic.
+ Lots of satisfying carnage.
- Probably longer than it needed to be.
- Much simpler than its pace would have you believe.
- Symbolism is more aesthetically appealing than genuinely meaningful.
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