The Wicker Man (2006)
Directed by Neil Labute
Written by Neil Labute
Starring Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, Leelee Sobieski, Frances Conroy
Release Date September 2nd, 2006
Published September 1st, 2006
Director Neil LaBute's war of the sexes examinations of the male-female dynamic are some of the most caustic and elucidating treatises on men and women thus far brought to the screen. His In The Company of Men, Your Friends, and Neighbors and The Shape of Things are withering, gut wrenching contests of highly neurotic will. Each film a wringing of the writer-director's psyche on to the screen. To this point in his career LaBute had avoided simplistic metaphor in favor of the raw examination of his feelings of insecurity and inferiority.
For his latest film, however, LaBute has waded neck deep into the muck of a loaded metaphor. In The Wicker Man, a loose remake of 1973's horror thriller of the same title, LaBute places his battle of sexes inside a dopey thriller plot that any other director could have pulled out of his ass. Working uncomfortably within genre constraints, Labute chafes at his thriller plot which crowds out the more interesting ideas about men and women that he desperately crams into into sides of the picture.
Thus The Wicker Man becomes a dippy hodgepodge of thriller cliches and mixed metaphor. But mostly, it's a tedious trip to the movies.
Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) just received a letter from his ex-lover Willow (Kate Beahan) and was rather shocked at the content. This women he loved; who disappeared without saying goodbye some years earlier, is calling on him to come to a remote island off the coast of Washington state where a girl who may or may not be his daughter has gone missing.
Making the journey to the island, Edward encounters a society of women who worship nature and dominate the men of the island who are seemingly slaves. Lead by Sister Summerisle (Ellen Burstyn); there is a distinctly creepy vibe to this little cult despite the gentility of most residents.
Searching for the child Edward is stonewalled by everyone as someone is tries to make it seem as if the child never existed. The truth is a sinister twist you can likely see coming even if you have never seen the original 1973 Wicker Man. The only real shock you may get from The Wicker Man 2006 is in the credits when you see this dull witted, plodding mess is directed by the usually tart and ingenious writer-director Neil Labute.
Based on the British cult classic; The Wicker Man was reimagined by Neil LaBute as an examination of a society dominated by women. The female of the species have always fascinated LaBute whose debut picture In The Company of Men examined a pair of misogynists who take advantage of a beautiful blind woman only to have her destroy them. Your Friends & Neighbors was yet another navel gazing assessment of male female dynamics.
LaBute's most intense, and I think telling, portrayal of women was 2003's The Shape of Things in which a nerd, played by Paul Rudd, is reshaped, literally and figuratively, by a woman played by Rachel Weisz. The change in the nerdy exterior of Rudd's character is eventually revealed to be a large scale social experitment by Weisz's ambitious college student. This film exemplifies an idea that comes a little clearer in The Wicker Man, Neil LaBute is afraid of the power women wield over men.
Women can drive men to do anything in Neil LaBute's universe and men are ill equipped to stop them. In The Wicker Man all of the men of the island exist as breeding stock and nothing more. Cage may be an alpha male but he is naturally undone by the far more clever women who, even though their devious plot is too convoluted to be believed, control his every move.
This idea of LaBute examining his fear of women through a thriller story about a cult of powerful women is interesting but that is not really what we get in The Wicker Man. Rather, what came of the picture is a dull mystery about a dopey tough guy and a search for a missing girl that has all of the suspense of a David Spade movie.
Is it possible that Neil Labute lost control over this picture in the editing room? Given the exceptional talent he has shown in the past that is really the only explanation I can think of for the odd shifts in tone in the picture and the uncomfortable attempts to force suspense where none exists. A scene where Cage seeks a place to stay for a night finds Cage overacting and gesticulating in a vain attempt to give the scene some tension when in fact it is just a guy checking in to a slightly off-kilter inn.
Neil Labute is simply too talented to have crafted such a mess of a movie like The Wicker Man.
Nicolas Cage as a cop hunting for a missing girl on a remote pacific northwest island is the bare bones of a plot that includes references to the occult, to witchcraft, and druidism. Unfortunately, somewhere in the editing, the film became about the search for the missing girl, a red herring of immensely stupid proportion, and not about these eccentric and downright weird characters.
Neil LaBute, a master of dialogue and conniving characters, here settles for a mystery story that eschews any real examination of the characters. He sets up metaphors but never delivers the true subtext. You can infer from the fact that the island is home to a cult dominated by women with men kept as breeding stock; that LaBute is commenting subtextually about the power of women over men. However, LaBute never takes the time to examine the dynamic. All is inferred then shoved aside for more thriller genre goofiness.
The Wicker Man is a shockingly goofy movie that leaves one scratching his head; wondering how such talented people as Nicolas Cage and Neil LaBute could have made such a stunningly bad picture. The ambitions of both Cage and LaBute are visible around the edges but front and center is sheer goofiness that leaves its cast and creators with egg on their faces.
