Taron Egerton stars in "Everybody Wants to F*ck Me," a horror-comedy that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and attempts to mine dark comedy from a supernatural curse wrapped in toxic masculinity. The film follows a London man who finds his fantasy come true when every woman around him becomes inexplicably attracted to him, only to discover that unlimited desire proves horrifying rather than desirable.
The film's premise operates as a deliberate inversion of male wish fulfillment. Rather than celebrating the protagonist's sudden universal appeal, director Robert Eggers' approach treats the curse as exactly that, a punishment that strips away the fantasy's gloss to expose something rotten underneath. Egerton's character embodies the archetypal "soft boi," a man who performs sensitivity while harboring deeper commitment issues and objectifying impulses. The curse becomes literal manifestation of his inability to see women as complex beings rather than conquests to accumulate.
The script attempts satirical commentary on heterosexual male desire and the performative nature of modern romance. It wants to say something about a culture that encourages men to view romantic and sexual success as status markers, where seduction becomes conquest and validation arrives through conquest rather than genuine connection. The film knows its protagonist is contemptible. Whether audiences will find that knowledge entertaining remains the central question the film struggles to answer.
The tone wavers uncomfortably between body horror and romantic comedy. Scenes play as grotesque yet occasionally reach for tenderness, creating tonal whiplash that serves neither the horror nor comedy registers. The film's scattered approach suggests confusion about what it actually wants to examine. Is it critiquing male fantasy or indulging in it? Does it trust the audience to laugh at its protagonist's misery, or does it expect sympathy by the final act? These questions hang unresolved throughout.
Egerton carries the film with his characteristic commitment to uncomfortable material. He has built a career playing characters trapped between vulnerability and resentment, and this role sits squarely in that wheelhouse. His performance keeps the film watchable even when the script undermines itself, though even an actor of his caliber cannot fully salvage a movie at war with its own intentions.
The film arrives in a moment when male-centered narratives about desire face increased scrutiny. The #MeToo era has complicated stories about men getting what they want, and audiences prove less willing to laugh at women's bodies or predicaments framed as male fantasy. "Everybody Wants to F*ck Me" recognizes this shift intellectually but struggles to execute it meaningfully. It wants the transgression of crude humor without paying the price of actual transgression.
At its best, the film glimpses something true about modern masculine anxiety: the terror that comes when fantasy becomes reality and proves hollow. At its worst, it simply revels in its own cynicism, mistaking cruelty for critique. The movie knows where it should land philosophically but trips over its own contradictions getting there.