The Box

Synopsis: When someone leaves a mysterious package on the doorstep of  Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur Lewis (James Marsden) at 5.45 am one morning, their lives are changed in ways they could never have imagined.

Writer/director Richard Kelly achieved cult fame with his intriguing 2001 debut feature, Donnie Darko. The Box is not going to achieve anything like the buzz of that film, for it is a quite lugubrious affair with no pop-cultural appeal, and though I suspect it will languish at the multiplex it is a work of marvellous craftsmanship.

Based on a short story, Button, Button, by Richard Matheson, who wrote the classic sci-fi adventure thriller, "I Am Legend", The Box has a simple, some might even say too simple premise at its heart: would you let a total stranger die if it meant you’d be a million dollars richer? Evidently Matheson and Kelly believe that most people would.  That belief sets the pessimistic tone of the film which is, in essence, an old-fashioned morality play about the folly of man (in fact, given the role of women in this film one could justifiably trace it back to the saga of Adam and Eve).

Anyway. don’t worry too much about the essence of story for what carries the day here is Kelly’s superb cinematic narration of it. Matheson’s story was filmed in 1985 as an episode of the classic sci-fi teleseries, The Twilight Zone. Although I have not seen that show I have enough familiarity with the series to know that Kelly has painstakingly retained its approach – the amped-up mood of menace and apprehension, the mysterious half-glimpsed figures dwarfed by their surrounds, the eerily-foreboding music and so on.  Set in the mid-1970s, the production design by Alec Hammond is a marvel of authenticity whilst Steven B. Poster’s leached-out cinematography gives the film the perfect retro feel.  Completing the frontline collaboration is the score by Win Butler, Regine Chassagne and Owen Pallett which gets the classicTwilight Zone mood just right.

The cast is excellent. Leading the way is Frank Langella as the mysterious Arlington Steward, charged by Higher Forces to test the moral fibre of mere mortals (let’s not go there again) represented with conviction by the unusually cast Cameron Diaz and James Marsden. For me at least, it was hard to forget the latter as Corny Collins in Hairspray (2007) and he seemed far too young for the part but his actual performance was always credible. Diaz on the other hand looked about right as the anxious wife and makes a commendable showing outside of her familiar rom-com territory.

Ultimately, however, credit must go to Kelly as director for taking a small-screen genre piece and giving it masterly cinematic treatment. The Box will probably sink out of sight quite soon so see it on the big screen while you can.

 

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