“What?” Did you say something? “What?” “WHAT?!?” That’s essentially the exchange in the wild new trailer for “The Lighthouse,” in which Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson get into an epic shouting match over, quite literally, nothing.
The two are sitting alone in a room, with Dafoe on his bed and Pattinson on the floor just in front of his. Dafoe says, “What?” as though Pattinson has just spoken or has something on his mind. He didn’t make a sound, and he answers back with the same perplexing question. “What?” It escalates from there, and they are soon yelling back and forth the same word over and over until Dafoe loses it.
“Damn ye,” he bellows. “Then let two-strike ye dead, Winslow. Hark!”
That should give you an idea of the psychodrama craziness director Robert Eggers (“The Witch”) is going for in “The Lighthouse,” which is set in the 19th century and is little more than a face-off between two lighthouse keepers slowly going mad. The film is shot in an imposing black and white and has earned raves as an actors’ showcase after first premiering at Cannes and now at TIFF.
A24 is releasing “The Lighthouse” on Oct. 18 in theaters.
Watch the trailer above.