There is a moment, probably about 45 minutes into The Box, where you begin to wonder what the hell is going on. Up until this point director Richard Kelly (of Donnie Darko fame, and Southland Tales infamy) has his audience believing they are watching a morality play, but then the sci-fi kicks in and everything just gets weird. It is credit to Kelly that even with the twists and tangles of the plot, The Box is oddly enthralling.
The Box extends well past the scope of the original text, a short story by Richard Matheson called Button Button. Setting the action in 1976, Kelly has used the backdrop of the Viking Mission (first robotic research unit on Mars), with the NASA Langley facility playing a pivotal role in the film. Kelly has contextualised the film in a way that is familiar to him, setting it in Richmond, Virginia, where he grew up, and where his father worked as an engineer for NASA Langley. This lends the film an authenticity that enables the more fanciful elements of the script to still remain (clinging by its fingertips) suspenseful.
The Box centres on a middle class couple, Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden). Norma, a teacher at a private school and Arthur, an engineer at NASA, lead a happy but somewhat unfulfilled life with their son, Walter (Sam Oz Stone). Their suburban lives are interrupted when a strange gift is left on their doorstop, a wooden box with a red button (would any other colour be as enticing?). The puzzling gift is accompanied by a strange card, forewarning a visit from the mysterious Mr Arlington Steward (Frank Langella). Steward, a distinguished man with a terrible facial disfigurement, informs Norma that if the button is pressed, she and Arthur will receive a million dollars of tax-free money. The result of this action, however, will be the death of someone they don’t know. The couple question the veracity of the offer and the morality of taking the money, as their promised American Dream softly crumbles around them.
The film creates an atmosphere that is both sinister and intriguing. Reasonably devoid of blood and gore, the film focuses on creating suspense above horror, establishing a sense of unease early on. This hooks in the audience, who want to find out the denouement, despite the eccentricities of the plot. The tension is helped along by a brilliantly Hitchcockian soundtrack from Arcade Fire.
Borrowing elements from the Adam and Eve story, Sartre’s No Exit and some pilfered shots directly from Donnie Darko, Kelly entices the audience, giving them the sense they know where this story is heading. Unfortunately Kelly has tried to be too clever with the plot, taking the film beyond a point it needed to go. Instead of disguising the moral essence of the film, he has allowed it to be superseded. This is a mistake; it is credit to both his visual style and the cast that the film isn’t completely derailed by his ambition.
Had the film stuck to the confines of a morality tale and been stripped back to focus on the ordinary, scrapping the extraordinary developments, it would have been a more satisfying whole. As it is, The Box comes across as an extended version of the Twilight Zone (Button Button was turned into an episode of the cult TV show) engaging despite the ever ridiculous plot twists not because of them.
Australian release date: 29th October 2009
Director: Richard Kelly
Cast: Cameron Diaz, James Marden, Frank Langella, Sam Oz Stone, James Reborn, Holmes Osborne.
