On the way home to celebrate India Stoker’s 18th Birthday her father is in a fatal car crash, and so the movie opens with a funeral and a wake.  They are somber affairs not because of the death itself but the frigid atmosphere between the eccentric India and her aloof cold-fish of a mother. Stuck in their secluded country mansion, India retreats into her grief, whilst mother gets distracted by the sudden arrival of her late husband’s handsome younger brother that India had never previously heard of.

There is another visitor soon, a rarely seen Aunt, who comes to dinner one night specifically to warn the family about Charlie, although she is obviously petrified of him and she leaves she presses her phone number into India’s hand asking her to call later. She too disappears. 

Charlie’s attention soon turns to India and when her initial distrust turns full circle into infatuation, she becomes aware of his involvement in the disappearance of these people, and is complicit in the violent acts that this unhinged man continues to inflict. She also invokes the seething rage of her brittle mother for taking away the only pleasure/distraction in her rather empty life.

This wonderful stylish thriller is the first Hollywood movie from South Korean leading filmmaker Park Chan-wook who has built his reputation making movies, such as ‘Oldboy’, that are both beautiful works of art with very brutal subject matters.  The latter of which in this movie, I have barely touched upon, trust me!  Its very interestingly the first screenplay by successful TV actor Wentworth Miller (‘Prison Break’), and is visually stunning and beautifully photographed in Tennessee by Chan-wook’s regular DP Chung-hoon Chung.

Mia Wasikowska as creepy India and Nicole Kidman as her mother both excel in understated performances as these two detached woman who totally despise each other and lead separate lives in this opulent souless house. Uncle Charlie is played Brit actor Matthew Goode who is wonderfully slimy and much more suited to the part than Colin Firth who was originally attached to the project. And in another scene stealing cameo, my favorite Aussie actress Jacquie Weaver plays Aunt Gwendolyn. 

It’s a very subtle piece with a storyline that constantly twists and gets darker and more shocking as it unfolds. The attention to the most minute detail in every sense and on every level … makes it such a compelling view …. and re-affirms Chan-wook’s well deserved reputation as a true auteur.

Premiered at Sundance, this is about to hit US Theaters next week, and those in Europe in May.

P.S. It’s the last film that the late Tony Scott produced.

P.P.S. Spike Lee has just remade Chan-wook’s ‘Oldboy’ in Hollywood.  Why?


★★★★★★★★★