Mark Reviews Movies: BARBARIANS

Barbarians, IFC Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 31, 2022

The story of Barbarians is clearly split in two: before the home invasion and after that event. Before writer/director Charles Dorfman's movie becomes a fairly straightforward thriller, it's about two couples, whose relationships are gradually picked apart with incompatibilities and secrets and lies, and, among those pairings, a group of four friends, whose bonds are probably less stable and healthy than the romances they're barely maintaining. After a trio of men wearing animal masks or skulls arrive at the house with uncertain but obviously sinister intentions, the whole thing falls into a routine, anticlimactic pattern.

The first of the two couples are Adam (Iwan Rheon) and Eva (Catalina Sandino Moreno), whose names certainly suggest a level of something metaphorical—archetypical, perfect, or something of the like—that Dorfman leaves at the loaded suggestion. He's a director of commercials, looking to make some legitimate art with a first feature that's still in the screenwriting process. She's an actual artist, a sculptor, currently working on a piece that could give the two a comfortable life away from London and in the country. Adam isn't entirely certain about the living transition, and before the invaders arrive, it becomes apparent that he isn't certain about much of anything.

As for the other couple, they consist of Lucas (Tom Cullen) and Chloe (Inès Spiridonov). He's a real estate developer and social media star, and she's, well, his girlfriend, whose entire existence in this story revolves around her connections to the other characters (It's strange that, with such a limited cast of characters, one of the centrals ones remains so completely without a sense of purpose outside of the plot). Lucas' newest business venture involves an exclusive community of homes to be built out in the country and near an ancient stone monolith. He's a good salesman, meaning that we see a lot of his underlying insincerity when he isn't recording videos or livestreams for his fans across social networking.

The setup here is that Adam and Eva have made an arraignment with Lucas: She'll construct a replica of the monolith, and with that payment, Eva and Adam will be able to buy the model home on the planned community grounds. It's Adam's birthday, and the four are getting together to celebrate that and put their signatures on the paperwork for the house.

All of this begins as an observant study of these relationships, which grows increasingly awkward and uncomfortable as details about the friendships and romances emerge privately and quite publicly. At the center of it, at first, is the long-time friendship between Adam, who's quiet and stuck inside his own head, and Lucas, who puts on such a show of confidence in himself that it's probably the real deal of egotism.

Adam starts by wanting to prove himself to his buddy, even lying about putting a wounded fox of its misery after the poor animal found its way into the house. In reality, Adam was too scared to help it out of some barbed wire, and when the fox somehow ended up on the kitchen floor, the mercy-killing was actually performed by a local named Dan (Connor Swindells), who seems to make a point of flirting with Eva when Adam can see. With this and his fear of commitment and another secret, the point, of course, is that Adam is a bit of a coward, although we have no reason to really frame his behavior in that way until the second half of this story begins.

Lucas banters with Adam, who doesn't appreciate the jokes, and when the allegedly good friend says that he has taken another offer on the house, it's Eva who steps up for some serious negotiating. The tension between Adam and Lucas escalates and turns to physical confrontations. The secret is revealed, and just at the very height of this domestic melodrama, those three guys, armed with a shotgun and a bolt gun, show up at the door.

This turn ultimately does feel like an easy way out of some tricky interpersonal conflict, as well as an entire back story about Lucas and his shady dealings that occasionally comes up. If there's some form of underlying social critique or satire to the whole affair (these outsiders from the big city, invading and making a mess of the country the lives of the people there, getting a direct taste of the same from the locals), it's also kept in the background, while the quartet of ruined friends try to escape from, evade, and fight back against the intruders.

Dorfman's narrative doesn't completely fall apart with this shift in mechanics and tone. There is a bit more beneath the surface for at least one character after the intruders arrive—namely Adam and how those smaller moments of cowardice translate to a hostage scenario that becomes a life-or-death situation. Barbarians does becomes Adam's story in a more noticeable way, as his indecisiveness and moments of inaction bring about definitive consequences. It's an intriguing way for Dorfman to attempt to bring this tale back to the realm of a study of characters and relationships, but like so much else about this story, that element is overshadowed by the usual beats of a familiar plot.

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