The Box - B

On DVD and Blu-ray

In 1976, a financially strapped couple (James Marsden & Cameron Diaz) have a box with a button dropped off at their house by a freaky burn victim (Frank Langella). They get $1 million if they push the button but a stranger will die if they do. A brief discussion of a person's responsibility to mankind as well as the collective good vs. individual success follows. When their decision is made at the 30 minute mark, you'll wonder how writer-director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales) will fill the next 90 minutes. Quite well as it turns out . . .

Midway through at a library, Marsden has several strangers following him around while Diaz arrives separately and independently for different reasons leading to some edge-of-your-seat moments. The big mystery is slow to unravel and when it finally does, the film loses momentum as it becomes predictable. Kelly's attempts at meaning and depth are noble but he's just much, much better at the geeky superficial tricks. His musical choices are terrific as usual. Not just source music like Derek and the Dominoes's "Bell Bottom Blues" playing at a banquet but the original score music (by the trio of Win Butler, Regine Chassagne, and Owen Pallett) which creates a terrifically creepy mood while giving great homage to Bernard Herrmann.Kelly also nicely takes his time developing the characters and seems to be channelling Kubrick both in dialogue delivery and pacing in the early scenes. Marsden and Diaz are surprisingly good as the doomed couple. Not surprisingly, the film eventually starts feeling like Donnie Darko both in tone and substance. Southland Tales was undone by being too complicated and ambitious and Kelly couldn't keep all the juggled balls in the air. He gratefully and gracefully keeps things simpler this time out. B