The Box
Directed By: Richard Kelly
Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, James Rebhorn, Holmes Osborne, Sam Oz Stone
Studio: Warner Bros.
Year: 2009
Rated: PG-13
Film Length: 116 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 2.4:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Release Date: February 23, 2010
The Film **½
In The Box, adapted and greatly expanded from the Richard Matheson short story "Button Button", Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play Norma and Arthur Lewis, a married couple who live with their young son Walter (Stone) in northern Virginia circa 1976. Richard is a scientist for NASA and Norma is a school teacher. Their lives take a turn for the unusual when a mysterious package arrives at their door one day containing only a wooden box with a red button on top under a locked cover. The box is accompanied by a note indicating that they will receive a visit the following afternoon from a man named Arlington Steward (Langella) with the key to the lock. Steward, a man with an unusual disfigurement who is missing most of the lower left side of his face, arrives promptly as stated with a bizarre proposition that Norma and Arthur are given 24 hours to consider. If they press the button on top of the box, they will be given a briefcase filled with one million dollars in cash tax free, but a person who they do not know will die. Having recently encountered tough times professionally and financially, they are sorely tempted but also wary of the ethics of the offer and skeptical of its legitimacy. They make their fateful decision shortly before the 24 hours is up, and are then subject to an increasingly bizarre series of consequences suggesting a conspiracy involving parties as potentially diverse as Arthur's co-workers on a Mars Probe at NASA, Norma's students, the NSA, and possibly even an alien intelligence.
The Richard Matheson short story "Button Button" from which this film was adapted first appeared in Playboy magazine in 1970. It was extremely terse, centered around two interesting ideas, and had a modestly satisfying twist ending. Matheson later adapted his story into a teleplay for the 1980s version of "The Twilight Zone", changing the ending to be a bit more ambiguous and creepy. Richard Kelly's feature length adaptation of the story hews closest to the "Twilight Zone" version of the plot, and pumps it up with a lot of character detail, much of it based on his own childhood, and with attempts to explain the origins and purpose of the box.
In the film's early going, and even through most of the second act, viewers are likely to be drawn into the intriguing premise and the multiple clues scattered about suggesting some kind of creepy conspiracy is afoot. Unfortunately, the explanations ultimately offered up by the film's conclusion do more to deflate raised expectations than to satisfy raised curiosity. It is not unlike watching a TV series centered around a complex mystery (I'm looking at you, "X-Files") only to be faced with a completely unsatisfactory series conclusion, except that in this case, the viewer never gets a hundred or so episodes of good storytelling in advance of the "shark jump".
The cast is all over the map in terms of their performances, but given the demands of the screenplay, there was probably not a lot they could have done to make their characters work better. The early scenes involving the day to day personal and professional life of the Lewis family are usually the best in the film, and Diaz and Marsden have reasonably decent chemistry together during these passages. Somewhere along the way as they became enmeshed in the unnecessarily complicated machinations of the plot, I completely lost my interest in them and was left unmoved by the finale which takes a stale page out of the "Saw" playbook by throwing them into a dilemma forcing them to choose between two almost equally horrifying alternatives. Langella's mysterious, grotesque, and officious Arlington Steward is well-played, but he is an inherently one-note character that ceases to be interesting the moment his purpose is revealed.
Technically, the film appears to have been shot digitally with a color scheme tilted to yellows and browns that was either heavily manipulated in post production, achieved via the use of color filters on lenses, or some combination of both. The film takes place during the Christmas season of 1976, and a lot of effort appears to have been spent to achieve authentic period detail. Given the ultimate explanation of the film's plot and thematic point of view, the decision to make the film a period piece is a puzzling one. It appears to be a morality tale with a plot suggesting grave and imminent consequences for humanity if we do not change our present course. These consequences seem considerably less imminent given that the events illustrating them are set 33 years in the past.
The Video ****
The 1080p VC-1 encoded transfer at the movie's original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.4:1 has excellent detail and a deliberately unnatural color palette. Browns and yellows are emphasized with some artificial desaturation likely intended to underline the film's 1970s period setting. The presentation is otherwise pristine, and appears to be of completely digital origin as there is nary a hint of film grain, and highlights are occasionally blown out and diffuse.
The Audio ****
The DTS HD MA audio track plays things conservatively for most of its running time, but uses the surrounds and LFE at strategic times for dramatic effects. It is an effective if only modestly ambitious mix presented on disc with outstanding fidelity. Alternate Dolby Digital 5.1 dubs are also included in French and Spanish.
The Extras **½
Commentary from Director Richard Kelly is a dry but informative screen-specific solo commentary that was recorded in September of 2009. Kelly covers a myriad of topics concerning the film's production ranging from technical elements about how certain sequences were achieved to conceptual topics such as the adaptation of the story and the thematic reasons behind various decisions. These elements are presented well and logically, but the dry delivery and too frequent lapses into stating the obvious make it a bit of a chore to sit through at times. That being said, this is by far the most substantial and comprehensive extra on the disc for fans of the film looking for a behind the scenes glimpse into how it was created.
The Box: Grounded in Reality (10:42) is a featurette that focuses on how in the process of expanding the very short story on which the film was based to feature length, writer/director Kelly incorporated many elements from his own childhood including basing the main characters on his parents. I could not help thinking while watching it that a screenplay that was even more literally about his parents' life might have actually made for a better movie. The featurette is a combination of on-camera talking head interviews, film clips, and behind the scenes production footage. Interview participants include Kelly and his parents Lane and Ennis Kelly.
Richard Matheson: In His Own Voice (4:54) is a brief featurette in which the author discusses his almost 60 year literary and screenwriting career. He discusses Button Button, but also covers several of his other works with a few anecdotes from various points in his professional life. His comments are framed by brief interview clips with Richard Kelly offering up general praise and admiration.
Visual Effects Revealed (3:55 w/"play all") offers up various effects progression reels with narration from Visual Effects Editor Dylan Highsmith. It is divided up into three chapters that are viewable separately or via a "play all" menu selection.
Arlington's Face looks at how the effect of Arlington Steward's disfigurement was achieved via digital effects applied to the lower left side of Frank Langella's face.
The Water Coffin looks at how a sequence that involved hovering boxes of water in a library was created.
Transforming Richmond looks at how reference photography and digital technology were used to transform various locations in Virginia and Massachusetts into a credible circa-1976 Richmond Virginia. It also looks at how digital snow was applied to shots to achieve weather continuity for this story set during the Christmas season.
Music Video Prequels (9:14 w/"play all") offers up three "surveillance montages" referred to as Exhibits A, B and C set to score out-takes from the film. Exhibit A is mostly footage of various NASA workers. Exhibit B is primarily exteriors of the NASA facility and surrounding grounds. Exhibit C has footage of NASA workers, mostly consisting of actors from the film who played Mars Project employees as well as shots of the massive wind tunnel in the facility. The montages are occasionally interspersed with on screen text on a black background with words ostensibly from "NSA Memorandums". It is hard to describe the point of these montages without giving away spoilers about the film, but even those familiar with the film may have a hard time generating much enthusiasm for watching them more than once.
Skippable Promos appear when the disc is first inserted into a player. They are presented in VC-1 encoded 1080p video with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound:
Warner Digital Copy promo (:54)
Sherlock Holmes DVD/BD Trailer (2:17)
SD DVD & Digital Copy - As is the case with all recent Warner BDs of theatrical new release titles, a separate disc is included with an SD DVD of the film and a digital copy. The DVD presentation is a bare bones presentation with the film in 16:9 enhanced widescreen video and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound with no subtitle or alternate language options. The SD DVD video has a lot of unappealing MPEG noise and aliasing that is thankfully absent from the high definition presentation. It has no proper extras, but starts off with a series of skippable promos which are presented in 4:3 letterboxed video with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound:
The Book of Eli Theatrical Trailer (2:42)
Valentine's Day Theatrical Trailer (1:32)
Sherlock Holmes DVD/BD Trailer (2:17)
Clash of the Titans Theatrical Teaser
The digital copy is on-disc, and is compatible with either iTunes or Windows Media formats. It is unlocked through the use of a one-time password provided on a paper insert to the disc case.
Packaging
The disc is enclosed in a standard blu-ray case with an extra hub on the inner left side allowing it to accommodate the DVD/digital copy disc as well as the BD of the film. Inserts consist of the standard "disc manufactured to highest quality standards/make sure your firmware is up to date/etc." disclaimer sheet and a sheet with the code to unlock the iTunes or Windows digital copy. The hard case is in-turn placed in a cardboard slipcover that reproduces the same artwork with minor enhancements to make the splashes of color more shiny and some additional text touting the bonus DVD & digital copy. Menus are straightforward, and the disc is authored without any excessive use of Java, which means that the "resume" function of most BD players should work.
Summary **½
Richard Kelly's The Box hangs so many ornaments from the tree of the Richard Matheson short story from which it is adapted that the whole thing tips over. The film effectively mixes authentic-feeling character detail with creepy paranoid atmosphere centered around the ethical questions that inform its central mystery for most of its first two acts. Unfortunately, the unnecessarily fussy resolution to this mystery is more likely to generate eye-rolls in viewers than the kind of pondering of its ethical, scientific, and theological implications intended by the filmmakers. It is presented on Blu-ray Disc with solid VC-1 encoded 1080p video that accurately conveys the film's highly-stylized digital cinematography and a DTS-HD MA track that effectively repurposes the film's modestly ambitious theatrical mix for the home viewing environment. Extras are top-lined by a dry but informative commentary from writer-director Kelly. Also included are a featurette on how real-life details of Kelly's family were used to flesh out the screenplay, a featurette on author Richard Matheson, progression reels illustrating how three of the film's key special effects were achieved, and some not-too-interesting montages set to film score of "surveillance footage" that tie in with the film's plot. Warner has also included a bonus DVD disc that contains the film in both a bare-bones standard definition format as well as an iTunes or Windows Media compatible digital copy.
Regards,
