Writer/director Richard Kelly is best known for 2001’s overrated cult hit Donnie Darko. Darko is a twisted and puzzling muck of a tale so it is easy to expect something weird and confusing from his latest feature. But as baffling as Donnie Darko is, it’s nothing compared to the sci-fi suspense-thriller, The Box.
Arthur Lewis (James Marsden) and Norma Lewis (Cameron Diaz) wake up one morning to find a mysterious package left on their front stoop. Inside the package is a box with a wooden base and a red push button on top. Later that day, a disfigured stranger named Arlington Steward (played by the lone bright spot in the movie, Frank Langella) shows up at the front door saying the box is a gift that comes with a choice. Choose to push the button and the Lewises will receive one million dollars in cash and someone they don’t know will die. Choose to, and nothing happens except they get to keep a hundred bucks as a consolation prize just for playing.
After engaging in very little debate over their options, Mrs. Lewis does indeed push the little red button and it does cause the death of someone the family does not know. I’m not giving anything away here. I mean the scene is in the movie’s trailer.
Steward returns to collect the box from the Lewis family. He informs them the box will be reset and given to another family the Lewises do not know. So that’s the twist. Without a chance to celebrate or enjoy their newfound fortune, they realize they’re the ones to be offed next when the next couple also decides to push the pretty red button.
What the previews don’t convey is all the craziness that ensues after Mrs. Lewis slams her hand on the button as if she were on the 80’s game show Press your Luck. With a push of that button, The Box lands on a big whammy and becomes completely bewildering as the plot turns from an interesting moral dilemma into a government conspiracy tale with alien intrigue and religious overtones. There’s also an unexplained horde of possessed zombie-like beings that get random nosebleeds. At one point, three water cubes rise from the basement floor of a public library. Each one offers Mr. Lewis either salvation or damnation. Or at least I think that’s what happened. So many questions get stuffed in the final hour of this Box there’s not room left for any answers.
Many interesting plot devices get thrown into the mix and are never fully developed. Mr. Lewis works as an analyst for NASA and wants nothing more than to be a full-fledged astronaut. His application is denied because he failed the psychological exam despite his levelheaded appearance. When this happens in the first 15 minutes, you may think the revelation of Mr. Lewis being possibly a bit touched in the head may have larger implications like Jack Torrance in The Shining. You would be wrong. Mr. Lewis’ mental capacities never really become an issue again.
As for Mrs. Lewis, she’s missing a few digits on one of her feet due to radiation poisoning. Either that or all her little piggies went to the market, I don’t quite remember exactly. But neither circumstance is very relevant to the plot anyway. Heartbroken by his wife’s disability, Mr. Lewis invents a Dr. Scholl’s-like foot prosthetic so he can dance with his bride at parties. Touching, but this has no bearing on later events in the movie either.
The premise is terrific. A morality play that pits human greed for personal riches against the Lewises’ conscience and willingness to snuff out another’s life for a suitcase filled with hundred dollar bills. But after that, this Box simply folds.
Even the actors seem to give up on the movie in its ridiculousness. In the first act, Diaz lays on a thick Virginian accent to play Mrs. Lewis. Halfway through the movie, her accent disappears. Marsden barely gives the southern drawl a try before abandoning it.
The music also takes the viewer out of the story. While the cinematography and lighting of the film set an ominous and dark tone, the score at times contradicts the visuals with lighthearted melodies. Imagine watching 1995’s Usual Suspects with the theme from Benny Hill laid over images of Kevin Spacey turning into Keyser Soze. The Box is meant to challenge the viewer’s own moral code. It wants those leaving the theater to ask themselves and each other whether or not they would be willing to sacrifice another’s life for money. The only question moviegoers will be asking as they leave the multiplex is, “what the hell just happened?”
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