The Box

Reviewed by: - 11.05.07

I’m a big fan of Richard Kelly. After I saw Donnie Darko, I thought to myself, “This kid is going somewhere.”

Despite the fact that Kelly wrote the let-down Domino and with his sophomore effort Southland Tales delayed endlessly since it premiered at Cannes a million years ago, I have long sat wondering how long until something else of his would pan out. I got excited when rumblings about the long-gestating, high-concept film The Box began a few months ago.

The Box is based on the 1970 short story “Button, Button” by the prolific Richard Matheson. He’s done it all – books, movies, TV – and on top of that, a number of his works have been adapted for everything from TV movies to the big screen – most recently, the Will Smith adventurer I Am Legend is an adaptation of his novel of the same name.

I’ve never read the story The Box is based on, but I’ve seen the Twilight Zone episode based on it – it’s a unique and compelling idea. A couple gets a mysterious box and are told that if they press a button inside, they’ll be rewarded with a briefcase full of money, but someone they do not know will die. Obviously, that is a great set up for a short story or Twilight Zone episode, but does it work as a feature length film? Let’s find out.

Virginia, December 1976. NORMA (Cameron Diaz) and ARTHUR (James Marsden, although ) LEWIS, both in their early 30s, are asleep in bed when the doorbell rings. Norma goes to answer it and finds a package at her feet – no markings or labels on it.

The next morning, Arthur opens it up and finds inside a smooth, solid wooden box with a plastic dome covering a button on top. A note is attached – addressed to Norma. The note reads: Mr. Steward will call on you at 5:00 PM. Norma doesn’t recall knowing a Mr. Steward.

Norma walks with Walter to the bus stop. There we meet DANA, 13, Walter’s schoolmate who also babysits him. As they get on the bus, Norma greets BUD the bus driver. They exchange pleasantries, and Bud says cryptically as he shuts the door, “It will all be over soon, Norma.”

Norma and Arthur head to work, Norma to teach science at Walter’s school and Arthur at NASA. At school, Norma waves to Walter as she walks by, limping. This prompts Dana to ask Walter what is wrong with his mother’s foot, but Walter gets defensive.

At work, both Norma and Arthur get bad news. WILLIAM POATES, the school’s principle tells Norma that the school has cancelled faculty discounts and that they will have to pay full tuition for Walter. As they talk, Poates begins to suffer a nosebleed. At NASA, Arthur is told by his boss and Mars Rover project leader NORM CAHILL that he has been denied acceptance into the astronaut training program. Arthur is crushed and asks why, but Cahill says they don’t even tell him.

Later, Arthur makes special shoe inserts out of a new substance for Norma. A colleague asks what he is doing. At the same time, a student in Norma’s class inquires about her foot. Switching back and forth, we hear what happened: When Norma was 17, her brother dropped a barbell on her foot. She went into get it x-rayed, but the doctor left the machine on too long. The tissue in four of her toes was totally destroyed. The toes were amputated and skin from her thigh was grafted to cover the front of her foot.

Later that day, while Arthur is playing basketball at the gym, the doorbell rings at precisely 5:00 PM. Mr. ARLINGTON STEWARD (Frank Langella) stands there, half his face horribly burned and scarred.

He hands Norma a key that opens the plastic cover over the button. He then informs her two things will happen if she pushes the button: Someone, somewhere in the world who she does not know, will die and she will receive $200,000, tax free, in cash, which he then shows her in a briefcase. Norma asks who he works for, but Steward says he cannot reveal anything else, especially about his employer.

Steward them informs her that there are two more important things she must know: First, she cannot discuss this with anyone else besides Arthur or they lose the money and second, she has 24 hours to decide.

A slow start, but it works for the setup.

As they drive to a rehearsal dinner for Norma’s sister, Norma tells Arthur about the offer. Norma says she think it’s real but Arthur is still convinced it’s some kind of scam.

At the dinner, we meet SENATOR GRIFFITH POWELL, father of the groom. We also meet NATHAN, Norma’s brother who dropped the barbell on her foot, now paralyzed from a recent carwreck. Also present is DR. STUPE, the doctor who caused Norma’s accident. He avoids Norma and Arthur.

Back at the Lewis’ home, Walter shows Dana a big group picture of the NASA scientists involved in the Mars program. Arlington Steward is among one of those in the picture – smiling, his face unscarred.

The next day, Norma and Arthur are still at odds with whether they should push the button. Norma pulls out the business card Steward gave to her and calls him. He greets her by name and assures her that he will not murder the person nor is it a joke. He then tells her that he’s looking at her – through the spotted owl in the backyard. Norma sees an owl watching her through the window.

They push the button. (Come on, it would be a pretty short movie if they didn’t.)

Elsewhere in town… a call comes in to 911 police dispatch – someone heard loud screaming and a gunshot. A woman, AMY BEVILACQUA has been shot in the chest and her young daughter locked upstairs in the bathroom. The police believe her HUSBAND did it.

Steward delivers the money and takes the box. He tells them the box is going to someone else – to someone they do not know.

This is where things get a little weird. And a little literary.

Curious about everything, Norma and Arthur try to track Steward. They are directed to Jean Paul Satre’s No Exit, a play about three people trapped in a room they discover to be hell – and that the eternity of suffering they are going to experience will be caused by being locked together.

As they delve deeper into this mystery of the box, they find more than they bargained for and realize that this has happened before and that Steward and several others around them, are connected to this more than they thought. Much more…

If you’re familiar with Richard Kelly, even a little, you probably know that he is not happy with going the normal route: in brief, his stuff is “out there,” and The Box is no exception. One reason this may be is that Kelly has a penchant for taking on a number of genres in his work – merging sci-fi, comedy, horror, thriller, and drama all in the same film (Southland Tales is supposed to be all that and a musical). Like its predecessors, The Box has moments of thriller, horror, and sci-fi , with a nice sheen of surrealism thrown in. This mixing of genres has worked in the past and it seems to work again here – this film is creepy, eerie, and a little bizarre, all without jeopardizing the consistency of the film’s tone. (Well, kind of. There is one potential mention that could, well, alienate audiences. But that’s not really the genre’s fault… I’ll get back to it later.)

And the tone is going to be decent. The atmosphere of the film is going to be quite spooky and foreboding – and if anyone can make Christmastime creepy, Richard Kelly, the guy made bunny costumes disturbing, is the man to do it. There are a number of sequences that are just rife with potential because they are just so damn cool, but for not wanting to spoil anything, I will keep them to myself for the time being. But you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it.

On top of this, the characters are well-established and unique – especially the mysterious Steward, a role Langella is absolutely perfect for. Diaz was an interesting pick for Norma, but she showed she had a penchant for the bizarre in Being John Malkovich so I can see her channeling this one well. I really like James Marsden and I think this is a good role for him – thankfully a nice departure from his usual nice-guy finishing last (the “dumped” Cyclops, the dumped boyfriend in The Notebook, the dumped boyfriend in Superman Returns, etc).

I only have one real criticism. Okay, no, two – but they’re related. First, looking back at the story, the mystery is explained (kind of) near the very end, with about 15 pages left to wrap up the action. The explanation works for the most part, but it doesn’t really clarify things, just a few of the big questions. And in the end, we are left with the conclusion and the meaning of everything left pretty open. I’m not against wrapping things up close to the end or with open endings. This worked with Donnie Darko. People left that movie feeling confused as all hell, but at least having a vague sense that they at least understood, on the most basic level, what happened.

Sure, there was an explanation or maybe more, but why give it all away at the end like the bad guy revealing his diabolical plan in a James Bond movie? Viewers don’t like walking away from a movie confused nor do they like being told everything that happened in the end – there has to be a balance. Kelly essentially gave people the tools to put things together and come to their own conclusions, with a little more thrown in for fun – and he does the same thing here.

But I’m not certain this is going to work with The Box. When you have a high-concept film, people will go in wanting a distinct answer. Donnie Darko had no big questions that were advertised – you can’t even try to describe that movie in a few words and encompass the basic plot. But with this… you can. And people will want a clear, distinct answer, but Kelly doesn’t provide it.

Also, the ambiguous answer that is given… well it involves something I like to call The Village effect. You go in, expecting one thing and get another. With The Village, people expected horror and monsters. What they got was fakery and a moral drama. I am not against twists, but when you twist something into an area people don’t expect, you might piss off some people. (The Village definitely did that to me.) And in my experience, only a few things can do that. Saying everything was a dream is definitely a big one – see Next (I have never seen a whole audience groan in unison before) and a full season of Dallas. Aliens is another – don’t believe me? See The Forgotten. On second thought, don’t – it’s not worth it.

Now jumping out of left field during a realistic thriller and going “Uhh… it was all… uh… aliens! Yeah that’s it” can ruin things. The item I am talking about in The Box doesn’t jump out of left field if you have been paying attention. It’s pretty well set up, actually, so I am willing to forgive it, but I’m expecting a lot of viewers won’t, especially considering that none of this set up will probably be mentioned in the advertisements.

My other criticism that is sort of related is the weirdness factor. I am all for vagueness and subtly, but there are times in The Box where things just get… well… weird for no reason. I tried my best to figure out why these scenes are there and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. This pisses me off because I like there to be a reason for what I’m seeing – if there’s no reason, why is it here? It’s what makes a story tight and well written – but weirdness for the sake of being weird? We’re in David Lynch territory now. Sure it’s kind of neat… sometimes, but if I wanted something that didn’t make sense, I could just watch a shitty abstract film. Putting random crap together on a screen and calling it art or entertainment doesn’t really justify itself as either to me and requires about as much skill as a three year old telling you about a dream, so I find it useless, pretentious, and annoying when people do it, especially people I like.

I hope the scenes I am discussing have a purpose and aren’t just there to be weird – and they very well might. If they do, then forgive my rant. But if not, then I am very disappointed in Richard Kelly. And if you point out that there were moments like this in Donnie Darko, yes I know but they worked; here, not so much.

Watching a movie more than once and catching details is something I really like – this is that kind of film. There are hidden symbols (owls) and other little details that are scattered throughout – I’m sure that there are some that still got by me. The David Lynch moments may very well be what got by me and I hope that I’ll understand them better upon a later reading or viewing.

Despite my two criticisms, I really did like this script. I had high expectations, and for the most part, I was not let down. There are a lot of great things to this – the characters, the reveals, the gripping ending – I loved it and now I am really excited to see what Kelly is going to do with this.