Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko is a highly-regarded cult classic and a personal favorite of mine. Even after the disaster that was Southland Tales, I felt obligated to give the writer/director another chance, which is why I was drawn to his third film (now available on DVD) out of eager curiosity towards a (formerly?) gifted young filmmaker.
The Box is based on Richard Matheson’s short story ”Button, Button,” which was later adapted into a “Twilight Zone” episode in 1986. Kelly’s version is an expansion of both, painfully and comically stretching the premise to feature length.
The first half draws heavily from those sources, establishing an eerie ambiance amidst an idyllic suburban setting (circa 1976). Norma (Cameron Diaz) is a school teacher with a slight physical deformity, and her husband, Arthur (James Marsden), is a compassionate spouse and NASA engineer. Hardships arise as Norma learns she can’t afford the private school tuition for their 9-year-old son Walter and Arthur finds out he’s not headed into space after all. If only the couple had some extra money…
As if on cue, a cubic package arrives on their doorstep addressed to Norma and containing the “button unit,” which is nothing more than a red cylinder protected by a locked dome of glass. The unit waits ominously on the table until the next day when the facially scarred Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) arrives with further instructions.
“If you press this button two things will happen. Someone in the world, who you don’t know, will die. Then you will immediately be given a million dollars,” Steward tells her, setting up the core Faustian dilemma. Norma and Arthur agonize over the decision, but ultimately press the button. There wouldn’t be a nearly 2-hour movie otherwise.
Unfortunately, everything after the initial setup and Matheson’s clever premise unravels into an over-indulgent farce mixed with endless exposition and stiff acting.
The inevitable button press opens Pandora’s box of nightmares for the young family, signifying a shift from a captivating morality mystery to an off-the-rails psychological thriller and B-movie alien conspiracy. As if poured out of the box itself, the characters flail in the chaos of disjointed, unintentionally hilarious dialogue and heavy-handed mind games.
The Box reeks of David Lynch’s surreal style, only there’s nothing suspenseful about Kelly’s stagnant pace or anything especially cryptic about the jumbled climax. Kelly allows the bizarre to spiral out of control into an incoherent amalgam of murder, 70′s production design, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s like two different movies exist on either side of the box. One half is a mainstream mystery with an intriguing riddle, and the other a sprawling, directionless mess of pretentious self-indulgence.
1 out of 5.
