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'The Box' a messy, unintelligent, confused movie
"The Box" stars Cameron Diaz. MOVIEWEB/Courtesy
By MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
Published: 11/6/2009 4:31 PM
Last Modified: 11/6/2009 4:56 PM
"The Box” is both full of it and empty. Part science-fiction thriller, part social experiment, part existentialist dissertation on man’s relationship with religion, this movie is a frustrating mess.
The initial premise is not terribly original, but it held potential: A couple finds a package on their front porch. Inside is a wooden box with a shiny button. A man arrives later that day with a proposition: Push the button and two things will happen. No. 1, someone you don’t know will die. No. 2, you will be given $1 million.
No one would even consider such an offer, right? End of movie, yes? No such luck for the audience.
Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and Oklahoma native James Marsden) are a happy couple with a bright son living in Virginia, and they and most of the people they know have Southern accents so thick they sound as if they just got off the bus from Mayberry.
The couple doesn’t need $1 million. But it wouldn’t hurt. Arthur could afford his Corvette Stingray (the movie is set in 1976; they could also replace the wild wallpaper). Norma could proceed with foot surgery (she lost four toes and noticeably limps). Their son’s private-school tuition is going up.
The button is pressed, and Arlington Steward (Frank Langella), the creepy fellow who made the offer and who is missing half of his face due to severe burns, shows up with the money. He assures the couple that the box will now be given to another couple, but don’t worry — no one you know.
This delicious quandary would make the perfect
ending to an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” which this story was in its original form, from a mid-1980s revival of Rod Serling’s original series. But filmmaker Richard Kelly, a cult favorite for “Donnie Darko,” has much more in mind than a 30-minute moral dilemma with a slick twist.
Which is unfortunate. His script has neither the intelligence nor the common sense to expand on this simple, solid idea that there is no such thing as a free lunch in this life, and now that you’ve made your financial killing, you have to live with your conscience.
The first half of “The Box” raises the tension swiftly, increasing both the couple’s and the audience’s paranoia level. The button is pushed, and the slow-burn narrative draws out our patience on questions we want answered. This part works.
Who was killed? Was anyone killed? What connection does Arthur’s work on NASA’s Mars Viking expedition have to do with the developments? What is Steward’s story?
Coincidence after coincidence happens to the couple and raises the heat on these questions. Now all we need are some solid answers, and not some stale secrets-of-the-universe hooey.
This is where everything goes wrong. An important reveal that happens 45 minutes before the conclusion is of the you-must-be-kidding variety and colors everything that follows. Tedious and completely preposterous, these events are on several occasions unintentionally hilarious, and that’s beyond giggling at the dialogue or Norma’s attempt at a Farrah Fawcett hairdo.
The death knell for “The Box” is when it goes completely ludicrous, and yet the director plays it straight, insisting that the audience keep taking his resolution seriously. This proved impossible to do.
It is painful to watch both Diaz and Marsden, because they both look to be in a great deal of pain. Once their button-pushing decision is made, they have tortured consciences, which means they scrunch up their faces a lot, which means they look like they have indigestion the remainder of the picture.
The movie’s first half made sense and fit the 1970s setting, feeling like a paranoid psychological thriller from that era like “Coma” or “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” But the filmmakers couldn’t seal the deal on “The Box.”
By MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
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