Stoker Review

The first time I saw Old Boy I ran out of the room in horror during the climax. I had to screw up my courage in order to return to the TV and watch the rest of the film. (Indisputable sign that it was a good film!) Chan-wok Park's subsequent films Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance also became cult hits, therefore anticipation is high for Stoker. In his first foray across the pond, Park keeps it in the family (*cue rimshot*). Stoker stars the haunting Mia Wasikowska as India Stoker, a peculiar girl whose inexplicably alluring uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) comes to stay with her and her mother (Nicole Kidman) following her father's untimely death.

Mila Wasikowska is an up-and-coming talent who once again proves herself in this role. Through unyielding facial expressions and subtle body movements alone she immediately makes my skin crawl. Left in less capable hands and the character would be little more than an imitation of Wednesday Addams (I don't think Mia cracks a single smile in the film), but she's brought a certain dimension of fragility, a twisted innocence even, to the character of India.  Matthew Goode is vastly underrated in my opinion, he's held his own in other leading roles and while he's never stunned us in any performance he's certainly consistent, and deserves more fame than he.  As mysterious/creepy Uncle Charlie he's appropriately cast with his outwardly good looks, unnerving stare, and controlled delivery of his lines (always a sign of a psychopath).  Nicole Kidman, in her quest to become a true 'artist', seems to thrive on these cold, ineffectual, weirdo roles. She's pretty much the same in all of them, however this does mean that she has the character down pat.

Chan-wook Park is very deliberate and meticulous in his direction, everything is detailed and carefully planned whether it be a rough tracking shot or ever-so-slightly tilted camera angle. Small sounds are accentuated as to bring us in close, the sound a soggy pencil being sharpened makes is now embedded in my head. His characters glide across the screen, somehow he uses their beauty and fluidity to make them appear even more frightening.  A mother-daughter's exchange of offers to brush each other's hair becomes unsettling.  A polite dinner conversation generates nervous tittering through the audience.

There is the debate about moral ambiguity in this movie, which audiences may protest against, but I believe those who have taken the time to see out something dark or who are familiar with Chan-wook Park's work, should have some idea of what they're getting into.  Even then Stoker is not for the faint of heart, it delves into the dredges of the human psyche where conscience and morality do not reach.

It's not so much believability or gratuitous violence that makes me hesitate to rave about Stoker, but rather I feel there is some element of shock here that doesn't really hit the mark.  We travel down this dark spiral with the characters, who are more eerily calm than we are about it, but with the accumulation of deaths and discoveries, I noticed more and more actions taken with little explanation of motives.  After awhile we start to become desensitized as the Stoker family and are just watching these things happen before our eyes with our emotions removed.  This feels like a script that was written with Park in mind to direct, which is different from something that's actually written by Chan-wook Park.  This script is succeeds at being edgy, whereas Park's own work pushes the boundaries of our minds and redefines them.  Thus Stoker is somewhere in the middle.


3/5