Richard Kelly’s fondness for melon-twisting puzzles knows no bounds it seems, as he sets up a preposterously accented Cameron Diaz and hunky hubby James Marsden with the classic do or die moral conundrum: Push a button and recieve one million dollars – the catch? Take it and someone, somewhere, must die…
Doctor Evil plotting aside, it’s a high concept query that could ignite a million pub arguments, Kelly wrapping the indecent proposal MacGuffin in enough stylish Sci-Fi/Horror ribbons that you can almost forgive the movie as it slides towards generic thriller territory. Bizarrely, the semi-famous Richard Matheson (of I Am Legend fame) tale suffered poor receipts in the US, possibly based more on Kelly’s shonky post-Southland Tales rep than word of mouth, as there’s much to intrigue and beguile here, filling the thriller set-up with indie stylings, zombies, postmodern philosophy and a short trip through time – Kelly is fast moving into Star Trek territory, but his commitment to the material lifts things out of the genre ghetto.
Like Donnie Darko, The Box juxtaposes the American ideal family with some all-out weirdness to often startling effect, the narrative is all over the place, but as with Darko, there are enough unifying threads that you’ll be willing to pour over the details and try to figure it all out later, rather than giving up completely a la Southland.
This gloomy visuals and clever-clever time travel can’t quite rewrite history enough to cover all the plot holes however, and it’s certainly difficult to get on-side with leads who decide that they’d knock someone off just to send their offspring to a nice college. Luckily Frank Langella appears regularly as a mutilated big bad who’s obviously completely mental, but – much like Kelly – has the conviction of his morals, making him a memorably nasty piece of work coming across like the restrained offspring of Hannibal Lecter and The Joker.
The genre-jumping and Kelly’s resolute stance against conventional movie making may upset the casual viewer, and this will certainly struggle to find a big cinema audience, although signs point to yes for a big home cult building over the next few years. In tone it’s uneven, but has enough foreboding 70’s horror overtones to make it a classy and slick change from the usual Hollywood factory-thriller.
Very much a case of Love or hate, but certainly worth seeking out.
One Comment
I hadn’t thought twice about bothering with this – but now I have. It looks alright, so it does. I still haven’t sat through Southland Tales – is it as bad as they say it is?