It certainly looks like it has potential from the quality of filming, the mood, the pace. But within the first 10 minutes the writing and dialogue are just unrealistic and almost cringy.

Just feels like the writer (and likely director) have a very preconceived notion of personal interaction in an office environment and the alpha male "boss/employee" relationship. It's just not believable...especially for a movie that was made in 2023. The stereotypes are old, so is the victimhood of the main character.

Hera doesn't essentially get raped, shower in her clothes and scrub her body down...and then fawn over Zach immediately after. Her co-workers/bosses are all completely rude and caddy. The snobby coworker Vicky and her blunt travel questions, doing coke in the bathroom, etc, just all put together feels overly dramatic and stereotyped. The angry female boss telling her she's overdressed since she doesn't see clients...something a boss would never say in that matter.

If this movies was made in or set in 1982 it would be far more believable.

The usual modern recipe here. Another mediocre dark drama that uses the Horror classification in the hope that it increases it's receipts or to find better distribution. IMDb classification says this is Horror/ Mystery/ Thriller but personally I don't see it in any of these genres. This is a drama with some dark fantasy elements and for me all these movies that come out in the last 2 to 3 years and are said to be "Psychological Horror" have nothing to do with the Horror genre, plain and simple. POLLEN is a far fetched, naive and preachy drama that shoves women empowerment elements down the viewer's throat, with only redeeming value being the good performance of Ava Rose Kinard at times (I emphasize the "at times" part here). Some reviewers said this is an art film, but I personally cannot see it as the whole thing it seems so predictable and formulaic that I could see the "surprise" ending coming from the first 20 minutes. The rest is a show of obnoxious characters including the leading lady, annoying and far fetched office bullying minutiae and a disjointed fantasy element that ultimately goes nowhere. Some promises that are given by the script are not explored even in the slightest and the end finds a horror fan like myself wondering why this was made in the first place and who really is it's target audience.

Where to begin? This film is ...weird. It had some potential but then went into a weird direction with a weird obsession, followed by a weird spiral. So, yeah, weird.

The film is about a young girl who's sexually, emotionally, and mentally abused by a guy she likes at work. Having to face him daily while working at what is supposed to be her dream job turns into a toxic environment as she's surrounded by coworkers who are self-absorbed bullies. She's given a plant that she grows an attachment to, which also begins the start of her spiral. Accompanied by her spiral are visions of a tree creature that haunts her causing her to behavior to progress.

The characters are unknown and the plot really loses its entire base without any substance other than a viewer watching a character lose her mind in such a weird way. I'm sure the script on paper may have been decent but the execution was poor.

This one is a 5/10, no more, no less.