The Lighthouse is the most recent period-piece from visionary new director Robert Eggers. Written by him and his brother, The Lighthouse is a nautical descent into absolute insanity. His sophomore effort, and a follow-up to The VVitch, The Lighthouse will leave you questioning everything.
What's actually happening here, and what's just in the heads of the characters? Is there really anyone coming to get them? Who is manipulating who here? This article doesn't promise definitive answers, but it will do its best to work out some of the most mind-boggling elements of this brain-twisting film. So, time to spill those beans Willem Dafoe mentioned.
Who is Ephraim?
Ephraim is kind of dodgy about his past from the start. Not only does he not have much to say about himself other than that he's just looking to do some honest work for a while and then settle down in the country, but when he says this, Thomas insists that he's running from something.
He also refuses to drink which greatly upsets Thomas. We end up finding out later that Ephraim watched a foreman die at his previous job which makes Thomas even less trusting.
Who Is Thomas?
Thomas is equally dodgy about his past, other than insisting that he's been a sailor for most of his life, and now took this job to settle down the same way Ephraim wants to. But eventually, we learn that perhaps he has something to hide as well.
He won't let Ephraim anywhere near the lamp that illuminates the water around the titular lighthouse, and there may be something even more sinister still...
Who Was The Wickey Before Ephraim?
Apparently, before Ephraim was sent out to assist Thomas in his duties, there was another wickie. A wickie who started going mad with visions of sirens and death and similar pieces of the nautical hellscape that'll go on to make up much of the symbolism in this film.
This does indeed start to sound familiar after hearing Ephraim's story. It becomes even more strange when it's revealed that "Ephraim" is also named Thomas, he's just using the name of his old foreman, dead after his neglect. It's not outright stated, but it's very heavily hinted that Ephraim could have saved him.
Who's Death Did Ephraim Witness?
Ephraim, who is Thomas, who is maybe Thomas the lighthouse keeper in a weird time loop? Let's tear this apart just a little bit and see what we can find. Since these are parallel stories, there are a few options. Perhaps Ephraim saw the death of his foreman, left to become a lighthouse keeper, and then got stranded.
This checks out so far. But what if the wickie that Thomas murdered was a hallucination that he's experiencing on repeat in some kind of purgatory as punishment for watching the death of his foreman? This sounds farfetched, but this whole film is hallucinatory so it's no major stretch.
What Is The Siren?
There's a siren, both a real one and a hallucinatory one, that plagues Ephraim's consciousness throughout the film. At first, it's manifested as a small wooden doll that he finds in the bed that belonged assumedly to the previous wickie.
Once he finds this, he has an umm... sexual encounter with it, which is relevant to the story, because later on, in the throes of his mania, he sees a siren out in the water, in which the same thing happens. This happens at about the same time that you realize he's completely lost it.
How Long Have They Been There?
"How long have we been on this rock? Five weeks? Two days? Help me to recollect." This is a question that Thomas poses to Ephraim. It wouldn't be a mistake to assume this is being posed to the viewer, however. The film is so disorienting that there's truly no frame of reference for time.
You, as a viewer, are in the same boat (no pun intended) as the wickies on the lighthouse, lending the tone of the film an even more liminal atmosphere. This is probably the only mystery in the film that legitimately can't be divined.
What Did Ephraim See In The Light?
The light. Constantly taunting Ephraim, and being hidden away by Thomas. We can't ever know for sure what the light holds, but given Thomas' sexual encounter with the light paralleling Ephraims, we can assume that it has something to do with desire.
We can also ascribe it to some kind of esoteric significance. Is it God? Enlightenment? Insanity? All of these interpretations make sense since when Ephraim finally looks at the light, he's overexposed in the frame and the music reaches the level of distorted noise. This suggests a tearing apart of his ego as separate from Thomas, the island, his sanity, everything. He's truly mad, in the same way, his communion with the siren drove him insane.
What Does The Ending Mean?
In the end, we see that Ephraim kills the old and brittle Thomas. After burying him alive, which Thomas doesn't really fight, mostly since he's been badly beaten, Thomas goes and looks at the ever-tempting lamp atop the lighthouse.
When he's presumably torn apart, killed, or otherwise destroyed, we pan down to a body lying on the beach below the lighthouse. It looks like Ephraim, but also with some of the features of Thomas, which lends credence to them being the same person. It is truly difficult to figure out, but that really is the best bet.
Who's Lying To Whom?
We constantly see Thomas lying to Ephraim, lying in his journals about his work ethic, and gaslighting him into decisions it seems like he normally wouldn't make.
But we also have to take into account that Ephraim was consistently hesitant to explain his history in regards to previous employment and motive for escaping the manslaughter he committed.
When Does The Line Between Reality and Fantasy Blur?
This is where we really start to make a judgment call. Ephraim and Thomas are both extremely unreliable narrators. Which one is less reliable though? Ephraim does indeed descend into questionable soundness of mind before Thomas does, but Thomas also tells him that he chased him with an ax right after we see Thomas chasing Ephraim with an ax, directly contradicting what the viewer sees.
Although up until this point we can more or less trust what we're seeing as what one character is experiencing, it's here that we realize the film itself might be intentionally misleading us. The film becomes a character, one less reliable than our 2 characters. At the end of the day, the film becomes a Rorschach test. You and your friends could come away with different interpretations and both be correct.