(Long Island, NY) The Box, a new sci-fi/horror film written and directed by Richard Kelly, ended up almost nothing like I expected. Never having read the 1970 Richard Matheson short story “Button, Button” that The Box is based on, the preview trailers made me think this was a modern re-telling of W. W. Jacob’s “The Monkey’s Paw.” Not so- much like Kelly’s surreal 2001 cult hit Donnie Darko, The Box starts out as one thing and quickly and perplexingly morphs into an entirely different beast altogether.
Recapping The Box’s storyline will prove daunting, as it’s really all over the place. About halfway through watching I began to get a dull ache in the pit of my stomach- the feeling I get when I’m watching a movie that I fear is posing far more questions than it will have the decency to answer by its conclusion. Sure, such an approach can be intriguing, although more often it just makes me want to set the movie screen on fire. Luckily for my fellow patrons at the movie theater (who probably weren’t in the mood to start scrambling for the emergency exit), The Box politely manages to wrap most of its loose threads up by the time the credits roll. At least, I think they were tied up. I’m not quite sure.
Set in the 1970’s, The Box starts out simply enough: Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur (James Marsden, the guy with laser eyes in X-Men) Lewis appear to be a moderately successful married couple (she teaches at a swanky private school, he works at NASA) who tend to live a bit beyond their means. Despair sets in when it appears that their inability to economize will threaten their son Walter’s (Sam Oz Stone) pricey education and possibly even their home, but just when things are looking their bleakest, a strange package is left at their front door early one morning. Containing an odd wooden box with a button enclosed in a locked glass dome and a note informing them that a “Mr. Steward” will come calling at 5:00 pm, Norma and Arthur are bewildered at first, but soon continue with their everyday routines. That is, until Mr. Steward (Frank Langella) actually shows up as advertised. A calm, well-spoken man grotesquely missing a chunk of his face (eew), he presents the Lewis family with a bizarre proposition and 24 hours to decide on it: if they press the button on the enigmatic wooden box, they get one million dollars, but someone they don’t know will die. Now, to their credit, Norma and Arthur agonize for almost the full 24 hours before hitting the button, whereas your average Dick and Jane would probably start tapping out Morse code on the thing instantly.
The deed done, Mr. Steward re-appears with a briefcase filled with one million smackers, but being decent folk, Norma and Arthur immediately regret their decision and try to take it back. Sorry guys- no go. However, this is just the beginning…soon the lines of reality start to blur as the couple and their son become central to a plot hatched by unknown alien forces to decide the very fate of mankind(!). As it progresses, The Box starts to get very trippy, and it’s to director Richard Kelly’s credit that he manages to keep all the threads of the plot-line from unraveling completely. Yeah, you’ll be sitting there wondering just what the heck is going on for most of the movie, but rest assured, it’ll all come together in the end. Well, sort of.
The Box is a very solid, unique and compelling film. It has a strange, nightmarish quality which is more unsettling than actually frightening, but it works to keep the viewer guessing until the very end. And yes, you will be guessing, because for the first 3/4ths of The Box, the storyline gives you nothing, and I mean NOTHING to go on. If you paid for your ticket, just realize that you’re along for the ride- my trying to explain how the plot progresses with its many dreamlike twists and turns would simply be an exercise in futility.
One of the main reasons The Box works so well, despite being fairly disconcerting, lies squarely on the strength of its cast. Cameron Diaz and James Marsden display amazing chemistry with one another as a couple damned by a moment of moral weakness. Frank Langella’s performance creates a aura of mystery, charm, and menace as he tackles the role of a grim redeemer with an unknown agenda. The rest of the cast is solid as well, but the film revolves around these three, and it would have completely fallen apart if left in the hands of less capable actors.
Of course, The Box’s other strength- it’s uniqueness- is also it’s greatest downfall, depending on your viewing tastes. If you like things straightforward and well explained, this ISN’T the movie for you. I could certainly see some people not enjoying The Box’s unconventional narrative, and when the payoff finally does come, it’s somewhat underwhelming. Not HORRIBLE, mind you, but just not worth the extended and rather overwrought buildup. Yes, there’s a huge emotional climax and it is rather heart wrenching, but the hows and whys are fairly unsatisfying, if only because they’re a bit hokey.
Also, I must take a moment to relay a personal annoyance to me concerning the “Mr. Steward” character. You see, as I mentioned above, he’s missing a nice big piece of his face. It ain’t pretty- we’re talking a good chunk of jawbone gone, a hole in his cheek exposing his teeth, the works. But all this was done via rather poor computer graphics, and it’s not convincing- in fact, I found it took away from Frank Langella’s performance a great deal. Here he is, being all chilling and creepy, and all I can do is stare at the unbelievably fake CG plastered across his puss. I could just picture the green placeholder paint used on his mug during filming, and when your CG provides a distraction of that magnitude, perhaps you’d best re-think the benefits of traditional, physical make-up effects. Okay, maybe you couldn’t make 1/3rd of Frank Langella’s head go completely bye-bye, but at least it’d look real.
So, in the end, The Box is an example of refreshing yet flawed film-making- it’ll be loved by some, hated by others, and all for the same reasons. But if you like you’re a thinking man’s science fiction fan, I highly recommend it.
