The Lure

The band that hunts mermaids together, stays together.

Or perhaps not. The link between pop music, mermaids and Warsaw is not fully explained by Disney, but The Lure fills in those gaps in your knowledge, plus it goes into their eating habits.

The Lure is very much a musical film. It is centred around the two mermaids and the pop band they join. Not only are there musical performances at the night club (of which they are a permanent feature) but also any of the main characters may burst into a song and dance routine in any scene, rather like a 1940's musical or Bollywood film. I don't know if the songs are typical of Polish music but the lyrics invoke some crazy imagery e.g.

Holy moly, bitter tastes can be delicious as hell
Picking at love’s cracked-up shells

The story line is dream like, with scenes that don't make sense, sudden jumps and characters that don't serve any plot purpose. It feels like a bunch of amazing ideas thrown together around the basic concept of two mermaids leaving the Vistula to work in a Warsaw night club. But given that the action is centred around a nightclub it is not unreasonable that things make as much sense as you would expect from that sleep deprived, addled world. It is also a horror film with a bit of gore and some radical surgery in the second half. It is hard to pigeon hole this crazy musical horror. It is better to just let its madness wash over you and go with the tide.

Ian's rating 4/5 Anne's rating 3/5