Casey Pegram’s review published on Letterboxd:
Provisional 3.5-star rating because I really don’t know what to make of this. It’s certainly a technical marvel, chock full of atmosphere, a real cinematic sledgehammer. But as for what all the sound and fury is in service of, I’m much less certain. Dafoe and Pattinson are always fun to watch here, but ultimately I didn’t find their situation or the way it progressed to be especially compelling. I don’t doubt that there’s more to be examined in terms of Eggers’ key reference points - Herman Melville, old lightkeeper diaries, etc. I just found that for all the technical prowess on display, this felt a lot less rich thematically than The Witch. But I certainly will be seeing it again.
Another thing I’m undecided on - the visuals. It looks stunning in many instances, but they also felt a tad gimmicky at times, not fully integrated or realized somehow, or perhaps leaned on too much. It’s sort of the cinema of One Perfect Shot, of Tumblr, of Instagram. Stylish yet a bit fundamentally thin.
I’m reminded of one of Godard’s favorite dictums: “An image is powerful not because it is brutal and fantastic, but because the association of ideas is distant and true.” I don’t know that there’s necessarily much of an idea behind these often brutal images, compelling as they are on a pure photographic level.