The Box (2009)

In spite of a B-list acting cast and an overwhelming slate of negative reviews, I had such high hopes for The Box. As it stands, I'm never watching another Richard Kelly movie so long as I live. The film isn't entirely bad, but the filmmaker is.

The conceit, based upon a short story by Richard Matheson of The Twilight Zone fame, is deceptively simple: disfigured stranger Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) arrives on the doorstep of suburban government workers Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, respectively), bearing a mysterious box. Push the button, he invites, promising $1,000,000 and the death of a stranger in return.

Here the trailers conclude. Unfortunately, all that drama unfolds within half an hour of the film's two-hour runtime. What follows is essentially an abduction of an unsuspecting audience, a tour by force and not de force through a tangled plot involving aliens (surprise! Did you miss the heavyhanded foreshadowing?), advanced technology, and human nature (with a major dose of Sartre thrown in apparently to show us how smart the filmmakers are to have read Sartre). I take no pleasure in the evisceration to follow, just as I can tell that the filmmakers found this a joyless experience.

Everything about The Box is slipshod and muddy, unattractive and unappealing. The acting is incredibly lackluster, with Diaz slipping in and out of what might be an attempt at a Southern accent (and the occasional limp) and with Marsden counting paychecks while dreaming of more substantial roles (he was delightful, don't forget, in Hairspray). Though Langella is suitably menacing as the shady Mr. Steward, it's quite obvious he's slumming; his disfigurement causes no apparent speech impediment, and his gravelly monotone bears none of the emotion behind his solid performance as Nixon in Frost/Nixon. Oh, and James Rebhorn is in it. Yeah, that guy.

The larger part of the blame, though, belongs on Richard Kelly's shoulders. I've made no bones about the fact that I absolutely downright hated the (in my eyes) irredeemable Donnie Darko, and had I known that The Box was Kelly's work as well I probably would have left it on the rental shelf. For starters, Kelly's at fault for not pushing his actors harder, particularly when it comes to Ms. Diaz's utterly inconsistent portrayal of Norma Lewis. More problematic is Kelly's inability to rein in the movie itself. The Box is like the television show Lost at its worst - wildly imaginative with overtures toward mythological significance but without any sense of direction, cohesion, or purpose. Oscillating wildly between plot points that only coincide in a "meh" of a climax, the film is big on anticipation and small on bang.

The Box retreads themes from Donnie Darko, so if you liked that clunker (which, if you'll recall, is responsible for introducing Jake Gyllenhaal to Hollywood, so that's strike two for the flick) you'll probably lap this one right up. Kelly's obsession with tortured protagonists at the mercy of forces beyond human understanding - here, "the ones that control the lightning" - bleeds through, as does the irrational and ultimately empty presence of transdimensional portals; though these elements seem to be building to something, they ultimately amount to little more than homages to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Worse, the film is brutally disjointed. Aside from the misleading marketing which drew me in with a plotline the film quickly discarded, The Box snaps back and forth between scenes and vignettes that don't quite make sense; the parts simply don't add up. Characters appear and disappear seemingly at random - a gaffe the movie tries to bandage up with the aforementioned portals - while plot points are introduced via severe suspensions of disbelief, only to be quickly abandoned. The film further invalidates itself by wrapping its mysteries into a giant Gordian knot at the climax; if, for example, the "beings" can override free will, what's the point of testing free will with the red button? Finally, the film suggests a cyclical nature to man's dog-eat-dog attitude toward itself, though the presence of a cycle again makes moot the issue of testing humanity; the button is always going to be pushed, and yet Mr. Steward keeps offering it. The effect is one of uselessness, a frustrating hybrid of "So why did you put me through this?" and "So what did I watch, anyway?"

The film's greatest insult is to Matheson, who was a more than serviceable writer in his day. His original story, and the Twilight Zone episode based upon it, both get shout-outs here, but Kelly seems eager to discard Matheson's original "Monkey's Paw"-esque intent - to question how well we know each other - in favor of slogging through his same old motifs. This is tantamount to a betrayal of the source material, and I would have advocated taking Matheson's name off the picture entirely. Next time, Mr. Kelly, just write your own story. Or better yet, just don't.

Tragically for Matheson and the strong premise, The Box is an unfocused mess, overwhelmingly disjointed and ultimately unfulfilling. Better leave this one unopened.
The Box is rated PG-13 "PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images." Um... there's some shooting, and Frank Langella is missing half of his face.