Cameron Diaz headlines director Richard Kelly’s new thriller The Box. For those of you hoping for Donnie Darko, you can take comfort in the occasional homage. Yes, people do stand in the middle of the street for no reason.
One winter morning, the Virginian couple (best guess given the fading accents) of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis (James Marsden & Cameron Diaz) are awoken by a ring of their doorbell. They find that someone has left them a box. Opening it, they find a device inside with a button. Later that day a disfigured man by the name of Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) arrives to instruct Norma on the function of the device. He tells them they have 24 hours to decide whether or not they should push the button. Should they choose to push it, they get $1,000,000 at the cost of a random death somewhere in the world.
For these movies to work the prognosticator of the game has to be mischievous; there has to be a sleight of hand in the outcome, but all the rules need to be present. It needs to be a trick, which taken literally will undo the hero. In the case of The Box, the “someone you don’t know will die” scenario is brought up. The characters then question whether or not they really know each other—and that’s the way it should have played out. Instead the couple makes a choice and is soon presented with more instructions that were not originally mentioned. I would have felt less insulted had Steward said that pushing the button would result in receiving a million dollars and ongoing involvement.
I’m all but certain a packed theatre would laugh uncontrollably at a character whose name escapes me. I’m going to refer to him as “deformity fetish lad”. When the DFL first appears, he’s a student in a classroom taught by Norma. He asks her why she walks with a limp and demands to see her foot. Norma removes her shoes and displays a mangled foot, and it is from this point forward that the DFL displays a ludicrous grin with eyes honed as though he’s contemplating some inappropriate design for Mrs. Lewis’s foot. If not for the sheer absurdity of the situation, maybe the desired affect wouldn’t have been lost.
However absurdity keeps striking The Box. There are no less than half a dozen shots of people watching blatantly obvious ‘70s TV programs and ads. We get it Richard, in the world you’ve envisioned people like TV. There is also a moment where Arthur pulls out of the driveway in a Corvette. Norma then says, “It’s a little early for a midlife crisis”. Is she not married to him? Wouldn’t she be aware of what car he drives? Suppose it’s new, wouldn’t she at least raise a question over a big ticket purchase without her consent? Sadly I have to go back to Norma’s foot. Numerous times people mention it, and Arthur even fashions silicon prosthesis for her in a scene that has no relevance to the plot. Judging from the discrepancies in the trailer, at least one set wasn’t used, and this could account for a character’s sudden teleportation after a car accident. Lastly, positively horrendous music dwarfs each scene of the film; the worst theatrical score I’ve encounter in recent cinema. The score telegraphs emotions as effectively as the laugh track on ABC’s Hank informs you to change the channel.
To its credit, Kelly does an admirable job building a setting. The film nearly looks like it was made in the ‘70s due to its soft lighting. It also became better as it went along, but that’s only because the irrational nature of the first half was followed by an attempt to provide answers. At one point I had thought a crew member had walked into frame. The scene I’m trying to describe involves a babysitter. She’s sitting at a dinner table with a boy and out of nowhere someone walks by the home’s window at close range. The direction didn’t purposely draw attention to it, so I figured it a gaff. Later it is revealed that Steward has “employees” under his control and as private-investigator-zombies they lurk about in this manner. Alas, just as some cans of worms appeared to be receiving a lid… more are opened as the “normal” characters behave just as outlandishly. By the film’s end there is no discernable truth or insight into this nonsense. Director Richard Kelly has managed to David Lynch himself. *½
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