Home Invasion Thriller Barbarians Isn’t Savage Enough
Charles Dorfman’s Barbarians is burned by its missed opportunities. The Stonehenge Lite weirdness and cultish overtones introduced before the film’s “dinner party from Hell” tease something more robust than what transpires. It’s never intensely committed to genre like Lee Haven Jones’ grotesque banquet The Feast, or as thrilling a home invasion as Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers. Clean and crisp to look at, Barbarians simply isn’t that fascinating a tale of mealtime madness and one that never delivers intensely enough on its titular barbarism.
Iwan Rheon stars as London director Adam, who trades a prosperous metropolitan routine for partner Eva’s (Catalina Sandino Moreno) idyllic countryside fantasy. On the night of Adam’s birthday, land developer Lucas (Tom Cullen) and his actress girlfriend Chloe (Inès Spiridonov) arrive for a casual celebration dinner. Lucas intends to reveal if Eva and Adam will be inking their modern-rustic dream home (well, Eva’s dream home), but only after the last course. Conversational banter fills the empty space, Lucas projects his alpha machismo, the couples begin to disagree ever so cordially—then three masked, armed intruders break in.
Barbarians is rooted in betrayal, starting with Lucas’ shady acquisition of property located near a worshiped natural tower dubbed the Gateway Stone. Lucas briefly visits the sacred statue to record a social media video, where he’s chased away by perturbed locals seeming to pray around the object’s base. There’s a sense the Stone might play a more prominent role in the night’s dangers beyond Lucas’ branding of his luxury homes with “Gateway,” but Dorfman never revisits it. Recurring fox imagery foreshadows some themes—whether you believe their visitations signify a personal gain or represent tricksters—but otherwise, the folklore is merely frontloaded despite narrative flickers of eccentric faiths.
On top of that disappointment, there’s something so delicious about dinner party delinquency that Barbarians misses. Secrets become a traded currency, whether that’s Chloe’s pregnancy, Adam’s unfulfillment, details behind the sudden death of Lucas’ prior business partner—but there’s a certain hateable quality to everyone that stifles suspense. Dorfman intends to bring his uncivilized diners to the brink just before their uninvited, animal-faced guests burst in, waving a shotgun. Alas, their irritating flaws are instead ugly character blemishes. Survival and empathy must both be earned; these characters are so far behind, we’re left seeking reasons why we should feel tension. There’d be no effusive reaction if Dorfman killed the lot of them upon his criminals’ entry.