The Box (M). Running time: 115 minutes. Director: Richard Kelly. Starring: James Marsden, Cameron Diaz, Frank Langella
I want it to be brilliant. Despite years of disappointment, I am optimistic. The memory of a certain smart, moody little sci-fi film of nearly a decade ago remains sturdy, though it has since been marred by repeated let-downs; a filmmaker's apparent promise all-but proven to be a fraud. Tonight, yet another chance to redeem himself.
The film is The Box, and its writer and director Richard Kelly was once one of the most promising American filmmakers of the noughties. His 2001 feature debut, Donnie Darko, was arguably the best US indie film of the decade. It is dark, funny and utterly intriguing. Its sublime ambiguity demands repeat viewing.
All but the most optimistic film buffs will say it was a wonderful fluke. Kelly's follow-ups were not so great. Domino (directed by Tony Scott from Kelly's script) was a vacuous mess; Southland Tales an epic, visionary failure. Kelly even marred his own masterpiece when he produced a charmless, dumbed-down 'director's cut' of Donnie Darko.
The Box is one more shot at reclaiming greatness, and, damn it, I want him to succeed. Surely Southland Tales has reminded him of the art of restraint, and Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut, that less is more.
On paper, The Box sounds like treasure. A married couple (Marsden and Diaz) is visited by a disfigured stranger (Langella), who presents them with a gift, and a proposition: the wooden box contains a button which, if pressed, will cause someone they do not know to die. They will never know who. In exchange, they will receive $1 million.
The first half of the film lives up to the promise of this morally charged premise. It unfolds slowly and creakily, taught and creepy as an episode of The Twilight Zone, as the cash-strapped Norma and Arthur meditate upon this morbid choice, and mediate the internal battle between logic, their consciences and self-interest.
There are portents aplenty. Norma, a schoolteacher, is humiliated by one of her students in front of the class. Arthur is driving their babysitter home when her nose suddenly starts bleeding and she begins blurting prescient warnings of doom. What's it all got to do with the box? Who knows, but it sure is compelling.
So far, so good. This is chilling stuff. It's Kelly doing his best David Lynch impersonation, by finding terror and wonder in