"The Lighthouse" has the face of a simple movie: two men alone in a lighthouse, but there is nothing simple about the plot. This movie is very good. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe both do great in this movie. How Willem Dafoe was not nominated for an Oscar for his role here astounds me. Pattinson definitely holds his own opposite Dafoe, he is definitely a much better actor than the "Twilight" series utilized. Roger Eggers directs this movie with tact and a lot of symbolism. There are two main ways to go about interpreting this movie. One, ​Pattinson's character, Ephraim Winslow/Thomas Howard, goes insane being alone with Dafoe's Thomas Wake for too long. The second way is that Winslow/Howard goes insane due to outside forces such as sea magic that embodies the titular lighthouse. There are other ways to interpret this movie, but these are the main two I think that have the most grounding. Eggers developed these two characters from Greek mythology characters Proteus and Prometheus. There is a lot of symbolism towards Greek mythology and sailor lore, however, I did not find it to be very symbolic towards modern society necessarily. I think the overall theme of past transgressions haunting a person is relevant, but for a movie this ambitious it feels like a deeper meaning is lacking. I guess I may have missed the deeper meaning, but I do pay close attention so maybe it should be a bit more obvious. There is some ambiguity to this movie which is both nice because the viewer can interpret for themselves what the movie is, but it is bad in the sense that there is no concrete conclusion as to what the movie is. The dialogue is very well written and is poetic, almost to a fault. I was having a difficult time understanding a lot of what the characters were saying, so I had to turn the subtitles on. I like that the accents and poetic language makes this feel more authentic and Shakespearean but it is a tad annoying as well. Subtitles don't bother me so that's fine, but it is weird to have to use them on a movie that is in my native language. This movie has a tense and unsettling atmosphere and I felt like being in black and white amplified those atmospheric feelings. This movie is a good one, it is incredibly well shot and acted. I felt like there was a lot of similarities to "The Shining." The isolation and insanity aspects are prominent in both films, and several events play out similarly in both. "The Lighthouse" may not be as good as "The Shining" but it is close and may one day be regarded just as highly as it. It is one of the better movies to come out of 2019, and I will not be surprised if it becomes a classic movie several years down the road. Overall, I give this movie an 8/10.