Movie Review The Box

The Box (2009)

Directed by Richard Kelly 

Written by Richard Kelly

Starring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Gillian Jacobs

Release Date November 6th, 2009

Published November 6th, 2009

It has been years since Richard Kelly burst on the scene with his visionary indie flick Donnie Darko. With its twisting, turning, spiraling plot and psychotropic imagery, it's no surprise that Donnie Darko became a cult favorite. Since that unconventional masterpiece Richard Kelly has foundered. 

His follow up, the dystopian L.A sci fi flick Southland Tales was marked by delays and budget issues before finally arriving to collective ignorance. Now comes his first major league feature. The Box has the stylish inventiveness of Darko but with a more conventional plot.

Cameron Diaz and James Marsden star in The Box as Norma and Arthur Lewis, a struggling upper middle class couple living in the suburbs of Richmond Virginia with their young son Walter (Sam Oz Stone). Their lives are thrown for a loop when one day a package is left on their doorstep.

Inside the box is a wooden stand with a glass top and a tempting looking red button. The button is locked and a note inside the box informs that a man will arrive the following day with the key and an offer. The man is Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) and the offer is 1 million dollars if the Lewis's choose to push the button.

The catch, if they push the button someone, somewhere, a person they have never met, will die. With Arthur having been denied a promotion at NASA and Walter's tuition at private school going up unexpectedly, that million bucks would come in handy. Can they live with killing someone?

The moral complications of their choice are not so much the subject of The Box. The decision to press the button comes quickly with a minimum of weighty conversation. What Richard Kelly is more interested in is a complicated little mystery plot involving mind control and maybe even aliens.

The morality stuff is dealt with but the decision is all too simple. Once those in the audience decide for themselves what they would do the film becomes a waiting game as plot strands are plucked while others dangle unresolved. Once I made my decision I was left uninvolved by the rest of the film.

I know quite simply that I would never push the button. I could not live with taking someone's life, even a complete stranger. The debate, what there was of it, and the aftermath were meaningless to me. Once the characters make the decision to press or not to press the button there is nothing much left for the movie to do but dither about in the subpar mystery stuff.

The look of The Box is exceptional. The ways in which Kelly evokes the movies of the 1970's with his soft focus lens and spectacular attention to detail are engrossing. It's the same immersive quality that Kelly had in Donnie Darko and failed to bring to Southland Tales.

The Box is a terrific looking film that succumbs to the ease of convoluted mystery at the expense of an intriguing moral quandary. The paranormal stuff could be interesting but it feels false next to the ethical dilemma that should be central to The Box. As it is, it's an intriguing idea comes out flat and uninteresting.