Queen of Earth Reviews

Two privileged women (Elisabeth Moss, Katherine Waterston) retreat up to a remote cabin every summer, but something’s very different about this year’s trip. Not only do the women learn just how far they’ve drifted from each other, but one of them seems on the precipice of a complete emotional collapse. Through flashbacks, we see that these fissures may have started from last year’s summer trip to the cabin, but there’s something far deeper at play here. It’s as if these two women have been long engaged in a game of emotional friction that they’ve both forgotten how to play, or even what the rulebook or point of it all was.

The past and present aren’t merely in communion with each other, but violently and abruptly bashing into each other throughout. The past isn’t a mere prologue here, but vitally alive, vengeful, and frequently rhyming with the present in ways that play out like an occasionally sick joke. Last year, Waterston was the one in an emotionally delicate situation while Moss was occasionally callous towards her, and situations repeat with the roles reversed and Moss’ stability increasingly called into question.

Queen of Earth also calls into question the concept of the reliability of its narrative as Moss’ fevered imaginings and hallucinated phone conversations pile-up. Are these slights real things, or is Moss’ character completely losing her ability in remembering what happened when or what is and isn’t happening outside of her overactive imagination? It’s here that Queen of Earth threatens to deflate under its own ambitions, but it keeps things powering through with its beautiful images, chilly but absorbing tone, and the strengths of the two lead performances.

Much of Queen of Earth is about how Elisabeth Moss’ character is feeling isolated from everything, including herself, and how severe depression can completely disrupt your life and health. Writer/director Alex Ross Perry and Moss work in tandem to not explain away these concepts or feelings, but to contextualize them. Moss’ character is in such a delicate and neurotic state that she can’t even accept the polite offering of a lunch without feeling like there’s some deeper, sinister portent lurking beneath it.

For her part, Katherine Waterston gets the more grounded role, but she has a tricky tightrope to walk herself. We’re never asked to truly feel sorry for these self-absorbed or clueless progeny of wealth and means, and the film often highlights the blinders they wear to go about their lives, but Waterston has to make her role somewhat understandable and her growing concern for Moss feel like it comes from somewhere deep and true. To watch them both work is to be reminded of how they’re two of our greatest working actresses. They make us understand the claustrophobia and despair of depression, and how those who never experience it will never be ever to fully understand or engage with those that do. You may as well be an island in the middle of the lake.