A young wall street executive is sent to Switzerland to retrieve his company's CEO from a sanitarium in the Alps for a business matter. The facility looks like a relic from Cold War Germany; the kind of place that still practices water treatment. After a brutal car accident on the mountain road, our young protagonist himself becomes a patient. As he wanders the curious halls and makes small chat with the other inhabitants and the suspicious head doctor Volmer (Jason Issacs), he begins to see the wheels of a medical conspiracy turning within the walls of the sanitarium.
After the box office calamity and foul after taste of Lone Ranger, I was curious to see what Gore Verbinski's next movie would be. A Cure for Wellness is a horror mystery that is deliciously macabre and exquisite in visual composition. Even though the movie takes itself dead seriously, it could easily be taken as camp. It is entertainment for viewers who get off on goosebumps, on sights like a man being force fed baby eel infested water.
Unfortunately Verbinski repeats one of his mistakes in Lone Ranger, he stretches out the happenings to the point of ill focus. It runs two and a half hours, and could easily have been a half hour shorter (at least). The overly deliberate pacing feels like a device to mask the lack of story. Behind all the spectacular mountain scenery, expressionist lighting, and surrealist dream sequences is a relatively familiar narrative, an individual who becomes a victim of an institution that sees him an an undermining threat. Movies like Shutter Island and In the Mouth of Madness come to mind.
The movie is slow but there are intriguing parts. Our protagonists has a special interest in one patient in particular. Hanna is a fair haired adolescent in a porcelain doll blue dress who looks like she could be a figment of imagination. For a while she seems to be his most reliable friend, but she is also of particular importance to Dr. Volmer. The mystery behind her is unravelled in a fiery climactic half hour that is chaotic and stinks of incest related gimmickry.
Full of characters that are largely representational and one-dimensional, the deliberately wooden style of acting is perhaps forgivable. For the cast, it's just a paycheck. The real star of the show is the cinematography. Certain shots are an absolute gem. Verbinski has a good eye but a poor sense of timing. A cure for Wellness has delights for horror movie goers, but the sluggishness may try your patience.
After the box office calamity and foul after taste of Lone Ranger, I was curious to see what Gore Verbinski's next movie would be. A Cure for Wellness is a horror mystery that is deliciously macabre and exquisite in visual composition. Even though the movie takes itself dead seriously, it could easily be taken as camp. It is entertainment for viewers who get off on goosebumps, on sights like a man being force fed baby eel infested water.
Unfortunately Verbinski repeats one of his mistakes in Lone Ranger, he stretches out the happenings to the point of ill focus. It runs two and a half hours, and could easily have been a half hour shorter (at least). The overly deliberate pacing feels like a device to mask the lack of story. Behind all the spectacular mountain scenery, expressionist lighting, and surrealist dream sequences is a relatively familiar narrative, an individual who becomes a victim of an institution that sees him an an undermining threat. Movies like Shutter Island and In the Mouth of Madness come to mind.
The movie is slow but there are intriguing parts. Our protagonists has a special interest in one patient in particular. Hanna is a fair haired adolescent in a porcelain doll blue dress who looks like she could be a figment of imagination. For a while she seems to be his most reliable friend, but she is also of particular importance to Dr. Volmer. The mystery behind her is unravelled in a fiery climactic half hour that is chaotic and stinks of incest related gimmickry.
Full of characters that are largely representational and one-dimensional, the deliberately wooden style of acting is perhaps forgivable. For the cast, it's just a paycheck. The real star of the show is the cinematography. Certain shots are an absolute gem. Verbinski has a good eye but a poor sense of timing. A cure for Wellness has delights for horror movie goers, but the sluggishness may try your patience.