[projekktor id=’27106′]
Anyone with a fear of the hospital, or the dentist, or dark water, or dementia, or eels, or drowning or…anything really, turn away now. Director Gore Verbinski (The Lone Ranger) returns to the big screen this weekend with A Cure For Wellness, a gothic horror-mystery which weaves a sprawling and twisty story about a mysterious sanitarium in the Swiss Alps. Just his second foray into the world of horror (he directed The Ring in 2002), Verbinski eschews many tropes of the genre, opting for a slow-paced, dreamlike film that delivers bone-chilling sequences and wonderfully creepy visuals. Unfortunately while the filmmaking craft is beautiful to behold, the story itself is overlong and bloated, giving the viewer ample time to predict its multiple twists, dulling their impact when they finally arrive.
Our hero in the film is Lockhart (Dane DeHaan), a young up-and-comer on Wall Street who works day and night at a highly competitive New York investment firm. His father having died mysteriously when Lockhart was just a child, he is left to care for his ailing mother himself and works to save money to move her into a long-term care facility. Thanks to his tireless work ethic, Lockhart is on the rise at his firm, a place where promising young employees are needed to replace the middle-aged employees who seem to drop dead at the water cooler on a regular basis. When the company’s big merger hangs upon the signature of a former board member who has absconded to Switzerland, Lockhart is tasked with finding him and bringing him back. Though reluctant at first, some legal discrepancies in Lockhart’s past aid in his convincing, and provide real incentive to get the job done.
So off he heads to Switzerland and the setting of the remainder of the film: an idyllic spa of crumbling stone nestled high in the mountains. The spa is overseen by the friendly Dr. Volmer (Jason Isaacs) and populated by elderly patients who spend their days playing croquet in the yard or lounging on the patio playing cards. The spa’s primary treatments involve rest, relaxation, and drinking plenty of the healing water, pumped up from an ancient aquifer beneath the facility. But there is something darker lurking here. Lockhart’s repeated pleas to see Pembroke are ignored, and, after an accident, he is incapacitated by a broken leg, becoming a patient at the spa himself.
The film moves at a steady pace in the first half, with chapter-like scenes providing a slow drip of exposition. As Lockhart searches for Pembroke he meets Hannah (Mia Goth), a young girl who lives at the spa. A “special case”, Hannah is being looked after by Dr. Volmer, who prescribes “vitamins” which she takes from a glass vial around her neck. She, like all the other patients, can’t quite put her finger on what her ailment is, but she knows she’s sick. Through Hannah, Lockhart learns more about the dark history of the spa, and begins to experience the same strange symptoms as the patients.
As the stage is slowly set, a sense of impending doom fills each scene. The themes of isolation and creeping madness recall films like The Shining (paid homage to early in the film) and Shutter Island. Director of photography Bojan Bazelli heightens this feeling, deftly transitioning from the hospital’s dreamy, sun-drenched gardens into the stuffy, antiseptic hallways of the hospital basement. Unfortunately the script has trouble delivering the great horrors the visuals seem to promise. Instead of focusing on the mystery of the spa’s magical water, Justin Haythe’s screenplay expands the scope of the story, travelling into Lockhart’s past, creating backstories for unnecessary characters and trying to keep tabs with the corporate bad guys in New York. By the mid-way point there are so many story threads that many of Lockhart’s actions start to seem non-sensical, and the growing dread of the first half is wasted as the film drags painfully into its second hour.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Lockhart is not the kind of protagonist we really want to hang out with for that long. Though Dane DeHaan is a talented actor and certainly gives it his all, Lockhart comes off as gloomy, demanding, and arrogant. His character is given very little growth throughout the story and seems so blind to the realities of the spa that you start to think he might be the dumbest person in the movie. While the broad stroke characterization of his snarling corporate overlords and the zombie-like patients is fun and fitting for a horror romp, this lack of complexity loses its appeal when applied to the hero. Mia Goth’s Hannah is just as dull and their scenes together have you admiring the production design more than listening to what their saying. Luckily Jason Isaacs is wonderfully sinister as the Mengeleesque Dr. Volmer, and provides the real highlight of the film’s second half.
Despite the script problems, Gore Verbinski’s filmmaking zeal still shines through in more than a few great scenes. A sequence in which Lockhart is encased in an eel-filled water tank is delightfully perverted, a medical procedure that recalls Marathon Man will have you curling up in your seat, and the film’s final showdown is delectable high camp. While these occasional highlights don’t justify the runtime, they at least give you something to remember as you’re walking from the theatre. Though far from revolutionary, and heavily watered down, A Cure for Wellness is still a decent cure for boredom.
Reviewed by Evan Arppe.
