Stoker (18.)
Directed by Park Chan-wook.
Starring Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Jacki Weaver, Dermut Mulroney and Ralph Brown. 97 mins
Hollywood has a set coping mechanism for when some distant foreign land produces a phalanx of movie making talent – it gives them jobs. In recent weeks we have seen its first attempts at taking the wind out of the sails of the surge of Korean movie talent. The director of the wonderful Treeless Mountain got to make a Paul Dano road movie, while the director of The Good, The Bad and the Weird and I Saw The Devil was entrusted with the Arnie comeback flick. The trick is persuading them these jobs are a privilege.
This though is the western debut of Oldboy director Park Chan-wook, the original Korean breakout success story who has been floundering ever since Lady Vengeance. His own recent ideas have been pretty dim (I’m a Cyborg, Thirst) and he has pursued them to their dim destinations. Now though he has been given someone else’s dim idea, a southern gothic fairy tale written by Wentworth Miller (TV’s Prison Break) and has polished it up into something very acceptable.
At her father’s funeral the withdrawn and studious India (Wasikowska) is shocked by the appearance of a previously unheard of uncle (Goode.) Though Goode is like a Belisha beacon emitting smarmy menace, floozy widow Kidman invites him to stay and dark family secrets are revealed dot dot dot.
It’s hand-me-down stuff: the family live in an abode that is like a Grand Designs version of the Beetlejuice house; the plot is advanced by overheard dialogue from serving staff and party guest; Wasikawski is dressed up like a puritan frontier girl. Parky though, aided by his long term cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, gives it the works, meshing the story into elaborate colour designs and visual schemes. The blood is always the perfect shade of red to set off the wallpaper it is splashed across and his visual flourishes are just the exact degree short of preposterous to best serve the story.
He can’t quite marshal the same level of control over his actors. Wasikowski is great in the title role but this kind of smarmy menace comes too easily for Goode. Kidman can usually reach an accommodation between her celebrity and her acting talent but here she is solely celebrity. Even in this heightened reality she sticks out - she looks odd, like a female Nicholas Cage.
Directed by Park Chan-wook.
Starring Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Jacki Weaver, Dermut Mulroney and Ralph Brown. 97 mins
Hollywood has a set coping mechanism for when some distant foreign land produces a phalanx of movie making talent – it gives them jobs. In recent weeks we have seen its first attempts at taking the wind out of the sails of the surge of Korean movie talent. The director of the wonderful Treeless Mountain got to make a Paul Dano road movie, while the director of The Good, The Bad and the Weird and I Saw The Devil was entrusted with the Arnie comeback flick. The trick is persuading them these jobs are a privilege.
This though is the western debut of Oldboy director Park Chan-wook, the original Korean breakout success story who has been floundering ever since Lady Vengeance. His own recent ideas have been pretty dim (I’m a Cyborg, Thirst) and he has pursued them to their dim destinations. Now though he has been given someone else’s dim idea, a southern gothic fairy tale written by Wentworth Miller (TV’s Prison Break) and has polished it up into something very acceptable.
At her father’s funeral the withdrawn and studious India (Wasikowska) is shocked by the appearance of a previously unheard of uncle (Goode.) Though Goode is like a Belisha beacon emitting smarmy menace, floozy widow Kidman invites him to stay and dark family secrets are revealed dot dot dot.
It’s hand-me-down stuff: the family live in an abode that is like a Grand Designs version of the Beetlejuice house; the plot is advanced by overheard dialogue from serving staff and party guest; Wasikawski is dressed up like a puritan frontier girl. Parky though, aided by his long term cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, gives it the works, meshing the story into elaborate colour designs and visual schemes. The blood is always the perfect shade of red to set off the wallpaper it is splashed across and his visual flourishes are just the exact degree short of preposterous to best serve the story.
He can’t quite marshal the same level of control over his actors. Wasikowski is great in the title role but this kind of smarmy menace comes too easily for Goode. Kidman can usually reach an accommodation between her celebrity and her acting talent but here she is solely celebrity. Even in this heightened reality she sticks out - she looks odd, like a female Nicholas Cage.
