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| Cameron Diaz stars in the mysterious The Box by Richard Kelly |
QUICK REVIEW:
A mysterious stranger visits a financially strained couple in 70s Virginia. His box gives them a choice, which turns out to be fateful: Push a button, which will kill a stranger, - but give you a million dollars.
No great film is made with this short story adaptation (of Button, Button by Richard Matheson, which has been used previously for a Twilight Zone episode from the 80s iteration of the legendary show). Despite a stoically disfigured Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon (2008)) and a fair Cameron Diaz (Being John Malkovich (1999)), (although James Marsden is vapid here), too much in The Box is unmotivated and mysterious apparently for the sake of being mysterious.
The Box remains as mysterious as its box, which is unsatisfying. It does, however, have its appropriately unpleasant moments and an effective score by Owen Pallet (Her (2013)) and Win Butler and Regine Chassagne of Canadian rock band Arcade Fire.
Its writer-director Richard Kelly made a miraculous masterpiece in his feature debut Donnie Darko (2001), but then followed it up with two big critical and commercial disappointments, Southland Tales (2005) and The Box, and hasn't done anything since.
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| James Marsden and Cameron Diaz by the mysterious box in Richard Kelly's The Box |
Watching the trailer, you want to believe in The Box, - and I always want to believe in Richard Kelly, my hero after Donnie Darko, - but then you watch the film ...
Budget: 30 mil. $
Box office: 32.9 mil. $
= Flop
What did you think of The Box?
Will Richard Kelly ever make another movie?
Please take this cyber-space to urge him to do so
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