Well, I just somehow managed to delete my review of "The Box", so it looks like I'm going to have to re-create it. I don't usually keep back-ups, so I'll have to rely on my memory.
Cameron Diaz carries over again from "Very Bad Things", and I'll follow a new link tomorrow, I just hope that actor has prominent roles in this film and the next one...
THE PLOT: A small box appears on the doorstep of a married couple, who learn that opening it will grant them a million dollars, and kill someone they don't know.
AFTER: This film has one of the best opening hooks that I've ever encountered - a couple finds a box on their doorstep, with no markings or labeling. Inside is a device with a large button, and no instructions. But when they're visited by a mysterious stranger, he explains that they've got 24 hours to decide whether to push the button, and if they press it, the stranger (who happens to be missing part of his face, for some reason...) will return with a million dollars, tax-free (this usually means "unreported" or "illegal", since there's no legal way to earn a million without taxes) and also, someone, somewhere, will die. It's someone they don't know, but they'll still be responsible for that death. And if they don't push the button, the man will return and take the button back, to deliver it to someone else and make the same offer.
First off, WTF? Is this just some kind of personality test, or one of those thought experiments? They can't detect any transmitter, any way that a signal can't be sent from the device, let alone a lethal one, so they're not sure whether to take the mysterious stranger at his word. Can they live with the guilt, knowing they had a hand in killing someone, or do they really need the money so bad that this becomes someone else's problem? This reminds me of my ex-sister-in-law, who took some weird delight in asking me how much I would charge to build a deck in her backyard, or if I would ride on a moped to Staten Island wearing an orange tuxedo for, say, $100,000 in cash. And if I said no, would I do it for $200,000? $500,000? She'd keep going until she found my price, and I developed a weird fear that someday she'd win the lottery, and I'd have to complete a variety of strange tasks.
Next question, what year is this set? They don't really say at first, but they're talking about a Mars landing and specifically mentioning the Viking craft, which launched in 1975. And there's a message on TV from President Ford, before cutting back to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson - so that would seem to back up the mid 1970's theory. And then once you start looking at the car models and the clothing, that would seem to be a good guess. But why set the story then? There might be some kind of insight in the opening quote, that any technology that hasn't been understood yet is going to appear to people as some kind of magic.
Saw the end credit for "Darko Productions", and that prompted me to check out the director - yes, it's from Richard Kelly, who also directed "Donnie Darko", and that makes some kind of sense, because that film also has a very confusing, creepy, unexplained events sort of vibe to it - and there's at least one actor in common. In fact this was based on a short story that got turned into a "Twilight Zone" episode back in 1986, so this all seems to make some kind of sense, from the "making of" perspective.
The problem then becomes, however, how do you craft a story that matches the intensity of that story hook? I don't think it's possible, and what follows after the first half hour just descends into a kind of weirdness, where the answered questions only lead to more questions that don't have answers. I don't want to give away too much here, because some things may be open to interpretation, and others maybe can't be explained at all. Just from a framework kind of perspective, the latter part of the film couldn't possibly live up to the promise of the first part.
Set in Virginia, but parts were filmed in Massachusetts, some in towns that I know, like Medfield and Waltham, but also in towns I don't know, like Ipswich and Winthrop. And then of course some parts were shot in the city of Boston, that big library scene could only have been shot in the Boston Public Library's beautiful reading room, a place that my BFF Andy knows very well. But not like this - there's a very creepy shot when all the cult members (if that's what they were) seated in that room all turned around and stood up in sequence.
Without giving anything away, the things that we do find out about the man never really add up to anything - how does he have so many people working for him? Is he working with the government, or does he represent some kind of higher power? Even learning that he was once struck by lightning doesn't give us much insight, considering all the weirdness that follows. Essentially, we learn that God does not play dice with the universe, but it seems he does play a version of "Let's Make a Deal". I guess that's one way of looking at things, in the end...
Also starring James Marsden (last seen in "27 Dresses"), Frank Langella (last seen in "Captain Fantastic", James Rebhorn (last seen in "Far From Heaven"), Holmes Osborne (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Sam Oz Stone, Gillian Jacobs (last seen in "Don't Think Twice"), Celia Weston (last seen in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days"), Deborah Rush (last seen in "You've Got Mail"), Lisa K. Wyatt, Mark Cartier, Kevin Robertson, Michelle Durrett, Ian Kahn, John Magaro (last seen in "War Machine"), Basil Hoffman (last seen in "Hail, Caesar!"), Ryan Woodle, Andrew Levitas, Frank Ridley, Bill Buell, with archive footage of William Conrad (last heard in "Hudson Hawk"), Linda Lavin (last seen in "The Intern").
RATING: 5 out of 10 nosebleeds
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