To See or Not To See: Mandy

Mandy is one of the weirdest movies I’ve seen all year.

The sophomoric debut from director Panos Cosmatos, Mandy stars Nicolas Cage as Red Miller. A lumberjack by day, Red and his crew are flown by helicopter into the forest every morning and flown out every night. And every night, he goes home to the love of his life, Mandy, played by Andrea Riseborough. They live a quiet life in a cabin in the woods, until a cult, led by Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) sets his eyes on Mandy and decides to forcibly make her his.

Red and Mandy’s relationship is weird. I wouldn’t say that Cage and Riseborough have great chemistry in this film, nor would I say that their performances are devoid of chemistry either. It’s just that their relationship, portrayed through the lens of Cosmatos, is unquantifiable. The best comparison I would liken it to would be knowing that pineapples and pizza shouldn’t work together, but they somehow do…but it doesn’t blow me away; it’s just…different. And definitely weird.

The oddness of their relationship is accentuated by the Cosmatos’ cinematography. There are long, drawn-out shots of Cage and Riseborough doing nothing but sitting around a campfire, taking a drag off a cigarette, lounging on the couch, or walking through the misty woods. A majority of the shots here remind me of David Fincher and his shooting style; wide and slow panning shots of landscape filled to the brim with tension. And boy, does this film have tension.

Compared to other Nicolas Cage movies, Mandy, is practically a silent film. Much of the story here is told through the cinematography; the scenes, the set dressing, scene transitions and the camera work here all take center stage. In one scene, we see Mandy injected through the neck with some psychedelic drugs. In addition to Riseborough’s performance, the camera starts fading in a multicolored silhouette trail, random colors start cycling through, and a whole bunch of other things happen which I won’t spoil. Sufficed to say, I was visually stunned the whole time, even if not much was happening on screen. This is quite an impressive feat, considering Mandy has a two-hour run time!

I’ve intentionally left this review as spoiler free and nebulous as possible. I genuinely believe going into this blind is the best way to experience what Mandy has to offer. If you want a taste of the Cosmatos’ directing style, watch the trailer for Beyond the Black Rainbow:

At its core, Mandy is a revenge flick—and it’s a great one at that. The small cast gives great performances; Cage and Roache especially so. There are homages to A Scanner Darkly and Evil Dead in here. Some shots resemble frames from a comic book and it’s all filtered though Cosmatos’ 80’s style lens. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about this movie, and I came out of it with my mind blown.

★ ★ ★ ★ out of 4