A young American executive is sent on a mission to retrieve his boss from an asylum. Once there, he comes to realize all is not as it seems, and suspects that the institution harbors sinister designs. It's not a unique story, and one that has been done better elsewhere. Consider it a bizarre revamp of Shutter Island and other, usually worse, films regarding entrapment in mental health facilities. While the story here rests with the simple and predictable, and while its characters seem inexplicably content to reside in a world where all is aggressively awry, the film boasts a few power punches that keep it interesting.
First and foremost -- something its marketing team got completely wrong -- it's not a scary movie. It's a horror film, and more specifically, it's a meditation on Gothic horror. Not unlike Crimson Peak, this is a fantastic foray into a world where waking visions abound and things go bump in the dark. We are drawn in by pale-skinned girls flirting with death, mountaintop castles with secret passages and unearthly dungeons, monsters lurking in the lake, violent townspeople and malicious doctors, secrets from the past, rape, torture, incest, and of course the specter of insanity. Sound like a good time?
Actually, it is, if you're willing to forego reality for its two-and-a-half-hour running time. Director Gore Verbinski helps us enter his vision through dreamlike pacing and excellent visual storytelling. You could watch the movie without any dialogue and have no problem following along; in fact, you might be better for it. His control of atmosphere and style is absolute, and with an impeccable production design in the mix, Verbinski has crafted a mesmerizing movie. And while the tale he chose to tell may be typical, his methods are anything but, pushing us through aggressively disturbing images to provoke visceral reactions. He forces so many wickedly clever motifs and thinly disguised tropes into the film it begins to take on a life of its own, an internal dialogue on borrowed themes and reimagined horrors. The more the better, I say, and it seems Verbinski said the same.
Without trying to sound trite, I'd say the film is more an experience than entertainment. A meditation on Gothicism and the boundaries between human bodies, human minds, and the horrors that await both, the film injects claustrophobia into its operatic style to entrancing effect.
And it's got Jason Isaacs, doing his thing, and a ton of eels. What's not to like?
IMDb: A Cure for Wellness
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