Movie Club Goes Psychedelic

November 19, 20251224 wordsContains spoilers

Lucas.

It's movie club week, which means it's high time that I watch the movie, write an article, and prepare for the greatest film discussion to ever grace the Peliplat Discord (join here). This month, mind.full.of.movies picked the movie-club movie and she chose Mandy, a 2018 action film starring Nicolas Cage.

From mind.full's article, I learned that she was very scientific with her selection: "I went on Google and typed in 'movies you should watch.'" That's one way to do it, for sure. Luckily, the internet was right, again, and Mandy is certainly a movie you should watch, even if it has its flaws.

This movie is ultraviolent and doused in psychedelic lighting and themes, but would you believe me if I told you that it's surprisingly slow? At two hours, I couldn't help but feel that Mandy could have worked as an 88-minute rager that was fast, furious, and fucked up. Instead, director Panos Cosmatos chooses to linger on his shots.

I remember specifically one shot that was a closeup of Nic Cage and I just kept thinking that Cosmatos was going to cut the camera, but instead he kept rolling for what felt like forever. It wasn't even that important of a scene. It stays on Cage for an uncomfortably long time, but discomfort is something I think Cosmatos was striving for.

The first third of the movie feels relatively unnecessary, though it's interesting from a character-study perspective. Listening to Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) tell her story about birds helped me sympathize with her, but it feels out of place with what Mandy is as a whole.

The truth is that Mandy really gets going when Mandy (spoiler alert!) dies. Once that happens, the movie becomes what it really is: a revenge story. I argue that Cosmatos could've started the movie with the death of Mandy. Introduce Red (Cage) as he watches his girlfriend die and that's all we really need to understand his thirst for vengeance.

Mandy's hellish adventure with the Children of the New Dawn cult is interesting, sure, but her death makes the experience kind of moot for the rest of the story. We can tell from the killing-of-Mandy scene that the cult is crazy, we don't need to see the leader's (Linus Roache) wiener during another one of Cosmatos's unnecessarily long shots. Mandy getting forced to take drugs is an aesthetically cool scene, but it's ultimately pointless because her story is cut so short.

The visuals are a definite standout of the film — they're awesome. There's this one scene that, like most Mandy scenes, goes on for way too long but is very, very trippy. The cult leader is talking to Mandy and Cosmatos shoots it as an extreme close up of the cult-leader's face. At this point, Mandy is fully hallucinating, so his face keeps going from having a mouth to not having a mouth, but it happens so slowly and so subtly that it was tricking my brain, forcing me to ask myself, "Does this guy have a mouth or not?" It was really cool and innovative.

Once Mandy kicks into that second gear, it's a radical trip. Red struggling out of a barbed-wire wrist tie was painful and a little bit biblical, which falls in line with the cult's style. I adored Red's breakdown scene after he escaped his near-certain death. The way he grabs the bottle of liquor, drinks it, pours it on his wounds, and, as the liquor takes effect, his emotions become more and more intense felt so visceral. It's a brutally raw Cage-within-a-cage scene where Nic's infamous overacting makes it all the more real.

Red's scene with Caruthers (Bill Duke) is a lot of exposition, but, surprisingly, considering all the time wasted in the first act, it is necessary for the plot. It's here that we learn of the strange, psychedelic drink that the Black Skulls take, which will become important later during Red's killing spree.

When we finally got to Red murdering everyone, I was ecstatic. I knew that this was what the movie was really about, but Costmatos just took the longest possible route to get there. If all we're worried about is Red's revenge, then just say that. Don't make me sit through all this character development that largely could have been left as implied rather than explicitly stated.

The decision I liked the most in the latter stages of the film is when Red finds some of the Black Skulls' psychedelic drink and decides to taste it. This gross-looking sludge shoots through his system like grief at a funeral. I appreciated that Cosmatos didn't forget what he had set up earlier in the film. Caruthers had said that the Black Skulls never came down from their trip. Red faces the same fate.

As the film concludes, Cosmatos reminds us that, although Red got his revenge, he now must live the rest of his life in a hallucination world. The woods he once called home are replaced with a cosmic dreamscape. Red is blood-soaked, having visions of Mandy, knowing that he sacrificed his sanity to avenge her. To him, that's a fair trade. He's ready to live with the consequences and that decision makes for a beautiful conclusion.

It felt like Cosmatos knew he was making John Wick with Nic Cage and he wanted to get away from that by tacking on this empathetic romance angle. I love a good love story (have you seen Dogfight?), but I feel like Red's love for Mandy is conveyed best by his reaction to her death.

I don't know, maybe I'm being unfair to say a movie should cut its entire first act. At the very least, Cosmatos could have put some urgency behind his shots, so the movie wouldn't run for over two hours and lull me to sleep before Cage starts gouging everyone's eyes out. I suppose, like any bad hallucination, it goes on a little longer than is comfortable.

I was still happy to watch it, and I'm glad mind.full picked it. It's not a movie I would've picked for myself, so it was refreshing to watch something I normally wouldn't gravitate toward. Plus, seeing Nic Cage bash some brains in is always enjoyable. Double points for the chainsaw fight!

I'm curious to see what people say at Movie Club. I know that this is a favourite for many a cinephile, so I'm sure my lukewarm reception is in the minority. I'm curious as to why some adore this film. Was I missing something? Probably.

If you agree with me, please back me up at Movie Club. If you disagree, please sound off in the comments and feel free to rip me apart at Movie Club. Either way, if you've seen Mandy, please come to Movie Club and talk about it. I need a second opinion... Wait, mind.full gave me that with her fantastic article... Still, I need a third opinion!!!

See you at Movie Club?