When you press the big red button on “The Box,” two things will happen. First, someone in the world, whom you don’t know, will die. Second, you will receive a briefcase filled with $1 million. When you go see this movie, chances are, two things will happen. First, you will be drawn in to the film’s cryptic, yet, fickle setup, and then you’ll be completely let down and aggravated by its failure to tie up lose ends and laughable suspense. Do yourself a favor, and don’t press the button on “The Box.”
Posed with this moral dilemma are Norma and Arthur Lewis, a seemingly happy couple, residing in 1976 suburban Virginia. Norma (Cameron Diaz, “My Sister’s Keeper”) is a schoolteacher at the private school her son attends, and she has just received news that the school will no longer provide faculty tuition benefits. Arthur (James Marsden, “27 Dresses”) works as a technician for NASA Langley and was just rejected from an astronaut program that would have provided a raise in his paycheck. Just when they’re down on their luck, Arlington Steward (Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”), an ominous man with a hole in his face, makes a proposition: press the button and you receive $1 million, but someone dies.
Like all other Hollywood films that offer the concept of the big red button, it functions as “schmuck bait,” luring in the unsuspecting. Tell someone not to press it, list all the terrible consequences of pressing it and it’s almost a sure thing that they will press it. The rest of the film unfolds those unforeseen consequences through an abstract and long-winded plot.
Richard Kelly (“Southland Tales”) has proved once again that “Donnie Darko” was just a fluke. With “The Box,” Kelly takes an intriguing storyline, makes a mess of it and then rubs salt on the wound with Cameron Diaz’s shoddy attempt at a southern accent and unbecoming scowl.
Based on Richard Matheson’s 1970 short story, “Button, Button,” which was later adapted into an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” the film turns into a science-fiction form of ’70s paranoid thriller movies, as the plot suddenly jumps from being interesting to just plain weird. Half way through the movie, numerous bit players start following around the main characters like zombies sporting nosebleeds and flashing the peace sign. It’s this kind of forced eeriness that garners more unintentional laughs than suspenseful moments.
“The Box” pushes its genre too far and comes off as more boring than tense.
The forced aspects of “The Box” seem to be a running theme throughout the film, as it screams 1970s. As if it wasn’t enough that the film teletypes the date and setting across the screen at the beginning of the film, every aspect of mis? en scene, props, makeup, costume, sets and lighting are ’70s themed. The wallpaper and furniture are horribly pretentious and gaudy, and Kelly even throws in short clips of popular ’70s television show, “What’s Happening!!,” to further emphasis the decade. Unnecessary? Yes. “The Box” fails to deliver that viewer-friendly, subtle depiction of the period like indie-flick “Adventureland” did with the ’80s.
While the plot is lacking and the genre is in overkill mode, there are a few aesthetically pleasing features to the film. “The Box” is an extremely well crafted film, cinematographically. Langella’s character has a facial deformation that leaves him with a Jigsaw-like appearance. The actor’s face was treated with digital engineering that restores his left cheek and lower jaw with CG scar tissue that appears technically seamless. An antiquated, original score by Win Butler, R?gine Chassagne and Owen Pallet of the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire backs this digital design.
The only thing worth watching, though, is Marsden. Paired with Diaz’s weak performance and an odd, unsatisfactory plot, Marsden delivers a flawless performance. He’s convincing, sickeningly handsome and understands the generation and geographic setting that the film is portraying. Langella plays his character creepy and sinister, but the plot’s lack of cohesion makes his character about as necessary as the hole in his face.
All in all, “The Box” disappoints. It’s not the nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat thriller that the trailer makes it out to be. Save your money, don’t waste the popcorn calories and leave “The Box” unopened and its button untouched.
2 1/2 stars out of 5.
