THE BOX

Virginia, 1976. Norma and Arthur Lewis are woken up early in the morning by the doorbell of their home. Norma opens the door and finds a box, inside which there is a button mechanism and a letter stating that at five in the afternoon a certain Mr. Steward would pass by. Punctually at five on the same day, Mr. Steward arrives, a man dressed discreetly, with a briefcase and half of his face disfigured. The man makes a proposal to Norma: if she presses the button of the mechanism, a person she does not know will die and they will earn a million dollars in cash. Norma and her husband have twenty-four hours to decide. Stop Richard Kelly! Or better, do not give this man enough money to bring his megalomaniac visions of the fantastic to life. The director of "Donnie Darko" has an undeniable talent but also an equally undeniable limit, he tends to overload his stories with subplots and meanings to the point of losing and making others lose the sense of direction and, inevitably, lose control of the narration. With "Donnie Darko" one could already sense the tendency towards narrative overcrowding, but the intelligence with which the project was moved and the charm of free interpretation made it so that the young American director hit the mark with his first film. For his second work, "Southland Tales", Kelly had at his disposal four times the budget of his first film and thus was able to give body to his fantasies, loading not only narratively but also visually his film and thus creating an indigestible mess. "The Box" represented the acid test, a budget similar to that of "Southland Tales" and just as many big names in the cast, but at the same time a story by Richard Matheson that made minimalism its strong point. Obviously Kelly is not satisfied even this time and overloads the base story to the point of making it explode. What is more frustrating is that as long as Kelly remains faithful to "Button, button", the story by Richard Matheson from which everything originates, "The Box" is an excellent film, full of tension, with a constant sense of mystery and a tight pace. When the author adds his own touch, not only does he twist the original idea, but he fills the story with so many elements that he can no longer get out of it "intact", to the point that more than one detail remains unresolved, thus making some choices completely useless and damaging to the economy and narrative coherence of the whole. "The Box" starts as a minimalist fantasy-tinged thriller that makes the intimacy of the situation a crucial point. He and she are in financial difficulty, have a child to raise and moreover she has an important foot operation to perform. The potential fortune that presents itself to the couple is the proverbial manna from heaven that could solve all their problems: just press a button. But here is where the moral principle that is at the base of the social nature of the human being is inserted: is it right to kill someone you do not know for personal well-being? Kelly manages the material at his disposal with extreme skill, exploiting the psychologies of his characters to the full without ever trivializing the path that leads to the "choice", but rather loading it with tension and drama. This is also positively favored by the work of the actors, among whom stands out a Frank Langella ("Superman Returns"; "Frost/Nixon: the Duel") intense and unsettling, supported by a Cameron Diaz ("Everyone Loves Mary"; "Charlie's Angels") in one of the best roles of her career. Unfortunately, once the sparse but interesting literary material, which also inspired an episode of "The Twilight Zone" dated 1986 and entitled "The Pulsantiera" (and that you can watch in full at the bottom of the page), is exhausted, the film begins to lose itself in religious-science fiction delusions that frankly clash a lot with what had been built up to that point. Minimalism and intimacy go to be blessed and the story takes a too broad turn. Kelly plays in an obvious way on the allegory of the biblical original sin and indulges in nonsensical science fiction finds that drastically break the compactness and coherence of the film. Finds abandoned to themselves, evidently difficult to manage with full knowledge of the facts and without which the film would have certainly gained. The desire to say and explain too much also succeeds in breaking the magic of the intriguing base idea, with the result that the charm of the mystery and free interpretation that characterized the director's debut and to which "Button, button" lent itself perfectly are thus lacking. The conclusion of "The Box" fortunately manages to square the imperfect circle, also returning to a good construction of tension. The general impression is that Kelly has managed to ruin an idea with immense potential, but is invasive and, in the end, "The Box" disappoints. The clear example of a missed opportunity. Watch the episode of The Twilight Zone LA PULSANTIERA