Film Review: Mandy

Director: Panos Cosmatos

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache

Running time: 121 mins

Panos Cosmatos’ ethereal masterpiece, and the highlight of this year’s Mayhem Film Festival, Mandy is amongst the most impressive films I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in recent years.  Lured by the promise of a Nicolas Cage revenge thriller in the usually booze-fuelled late night Friday slot at Mayhem, I was immediately hooked with an opening God’s-eye view shot of an impenetrable, shadowy forest backed by the sound of King Crimson’s Starless.  I’d entered the cinema expecting a can of Stella and a Marlboro Red, only to find myself sipping Kentucky bourbon and smoking a Montecristo. 

It’s immediately apparent that Cosmatos’ world is familiar to, but not quite like, our own.  We know we’re in the early 1980s, we know we’re witnessing the idiosyncratic, loved-up lives of a couple that clearly dig each other very much.  But the rest exists in another space, visually and emotionally.  Whether it’s the world of cinema, a parallel universe or simply within the minds of our characters is anybody’s guess. 

The couple in question is Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough), two outsiders who know exactly who they are and what makes them happy, co-existing in a slow-burning world of woodland tranquility.  You wonder what would have become of their lives had they never met.  Their Eden is shattered when sadistic cult leader Jerimiah Sand (Linus Roache) takes a shine to Mandy and, when faced with a humiliating rejection, seeks his revenge by burning her alive in front of a helpless Red, catapulting him down a surrealistic path of bloody, brutal revenge.

Every scene is directed with gusty conviction, each shot composed with an aesthetic otherworldliness as Cosmatos and his director of photography Benjamin Loeb create a rich, majestic world of occultist hyper-violence. Red’s hyper-stylised, amped-up odyssey of revenge makes up the entire third act and, whilst Mandy’s opening is hypnotic in its methodical, slow-dripping development, its conclusion is like being fired from a cannon into a blood-soaked, Lynchian nightmare. 

Riseborough is as good as she has ever been (although her lead role in The Devil’s Whore is still my personal favourite performance), and Linus Roache is a revelation as Sand, a character that in less skilled hands could easily have capsized into cartoon villain territory.  A scene they share together, in which a captivating speech from Roache sees their faces constantly blend into one-another is spellbinding, and arguably the most memorable from the entire film.  Nicolas Cage’s trademark manic, often hilarious, screen presence is reigned in and only unleashed when necessary by Cosmatos.  As much as I’ve enjoyed some of the horseshit he has been in during the last decade, it’s almost a shame that Mandy has come at a point in his career where he as well-known for terrible films as he is for his good.  He walks the tightrope between Bad Lieutenant and The Wicker Man perfectly, obviously aided by the flawless writer/director/cinematographer team that seems to know exactly when and how to unleash him. 

Mandy is a film that has to be experienced on the big screen.  Visually, it’s as impressive as anything I’ve seen in quite some time, and it strikes such a perfect balance between bombastic exaggeration and moments of bizarre, sincere tenderness that left me uncomfortable, disorientated and ultimately never entirely sure of either what had just transpired, or what was going to happen next.  But there’s one thing I was sure of, and that’s that I was watching a film of stunning, perplexing originality.   

Did you know? The number 44 on Red's shirt is likely a reference to Mark Twain's unfinished novel The Mysterious Stranger, where a supernatural character called "No. 44" appears and uses his supernatural powers to expose the futility of mankind's existence.

Mandy is screening at Broadway Cinema until Tuesday 23 October