Park Chan-wook's (Korean director of films such as OLDBOY and SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE) English language debut, STOKER, shares many of the same threads as Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 film, SHADOW OF A DOUBT. Both films are psychological thrillers. Both films also center around the relationship between a young woman and her Uncle Charlie. (Yes, even both uncles are Charlies.) In both films, the young woman and her family are struggling with their lives as they currently are. Charlie (another Charlie, the young woman in SHADOW OF A DOUBT, nicknamed after her uncle), who sees her family as stuck in a tremendous rut, complains that nothing is happening in her life. India Stoker's father is dead. (Obviously, this is a bit more extreme than a rut. But STOKER in general is more of an extreme film.) In both films, the mysterious Uncle Charlie shows up, either through a psychic link with his niece or other nefarious reasons, and seems like the answer to the young woman and her family's prayers. And in both films, Uncle Charlie is more than meets the eye, (No, he's not a Transformer.) sharply and suddenly changing the life of his young niece forever.
That being said, a remake STOKER is not. While SHADOW OF A DOUBT brilliantly peels back the welcoming warmth and innocence of a small idyllic town to reveal its underlying naivete and gullibility, STOKER is primarily a twisted coming of age tale where India's relationship with Uncle Charlie reveals the disturbing truth about the kind of person young India truly is. While SHADOW OF A DOUBT turns the quaint town of Santa Rosa, California into a character in its own right, the Stoker family are secluded, almost suspended in space and time in their large, Victorian mansion. Likewise, where Hitchcock is able to build suspense through not only Charlotte's relationship with Uncle Charlie, but his relationship with the town itself and the feeling of entrapment this causes in Charlotte, Park Chan-wook and STOKER rely solely on the relationships between India, her mother Evelyn, and Uncle Charlie.
And this is where the problem lies. You see, if your film relies almost completely on the relationships between these three people, they have to feel like, you know, actual people. Although Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode all turn in serviceable performances, a pedestrian script by PRISON BREAK star Wentworth Miller is unable to draw up any semblance of what a real person actually is. (Wasikowska and Goode are actually pretty impeccable for what they're given. Kidman has allowed plastic surgery to completely destroy any hope for a realistic, non-plasticy conveyance of emotion.) Don't get me wrong, movies don't necessarily have to have characters who seem like real people. But for a film that focuses so heavily on the evolution of this one young woman, the audience must have something to connect to. And though STOKER has an abundance of lush cinematography and a breathtaking color palette, as a story and character portrait it is resoundingly hollow.
Visually, STOKER is hypnotizing. The constantly moving camera, (including a brilliant intermixing of tracking and steadicam shots) the aforementioned color scheme and oblique angles make this one of the most astonishingly beautiful films of the year. Park's longtime collaborator and cinematographer, Chung Chung-hoon, also blends live events with flashbacks and memories using the awe-inspiring fades and cross-cuts for which the duo have become famous. If STOKER had a story to tell, there could have been no more striking a way to tell it.
But the film is dishearteningly empty. India quietly broods like a Victorian Lydia from BEETLEJUICE without the cleverness or humor. Uncle Charlie creeps, flirting with Evelyn while longingly staring at India. And Evelyn is either grooming and being a debutante or she's sulking with an unvoiced and immeasurable amount of pain. Sometimes they go out for ice cream! (But don't get India's favorite.) Sometimes they play tennis or have a quiet and incredibly awkward family dinner. And sometimes they play piano. While I'm clearly being facetious, these small repetitious events make up the majority of the emotional content in the film. Hell, they make up most of the content of the film period. There's a veritable Victorian mansion full of latent conflict here. India resents her useless, uncaring mother while turning and turning in the widening gyre of puberty. Evelyn equally resents India for being the focus of all of her father's attention before his death, and for snuffing out the spark of their marriage by being born. Charlie resents quite a few things. Most of which would completely spoil what shock the film has. Plus, there's that whole "father dead in a sudden and horrific accident" thing hanging over everyone.
And it goes nowhere real or affecting. That latent conflict is swallowed whole by the monotonous lives of these strange, WASPy people. And when the film tries to introduce some real conflict, some real transgression, instead of being shocked or compelled, I just laughed. A strongly developed love triangle between an uncle, a mother/sister-in-law and a daughter/niece is an incredibly interesting concept. But the execution is so overwrought and filled with so much posturing that what should seem ominous and strangely sexy, just seems silly and weird. (But not sexy weird!) A late shower scene of India exploring her body cross-cut with a scene of intense violence should be India's final transition into a monster fit for the Stoker family name. We should be seduced or in awe of her corrupted emergence as an adult. But it just feels hilariously ridiculous.
Park Chan-wook is famous for his visual flare. He's been quoted in many an interview stating his preference for films with little dialogue - that tell their stories through images. STOKER is no different. Unfortunately, in doing so Park completely smothers his actors. While the visuals should help us connect to the emotions these tortured individuals are experiencing, they just overpower them. In the rare instance where Mia Wasikowska is allowed room to breathe, she can be a commanding and imposing (and attractive) figure. However, it's clear that Park wants his visuals to take center stage, and in doing so they command and impose their will on the actors. Matthew Goode and, to a lesser extent, Nicole Kidman have the same problem. Luckily, most of what they're given to do is leaning against fancy, elaborate furniture and staring.
As concepts, STOKER is full of powerful and interesting ideas. But there are just too many extra things that don't make sense. India has weird superpowers - hypersensitive hearing and vision, trained to excellence by her father. But they serve no purpose other than morphing distant, secretive conversations into exposition that India overhears. Couple this with Park's insistence on the emphasis of his visual sense with completely unsubtle dialogue and themes and the film crumbles under its own weight. There might be people out there who can enjoy STOKER as a fun bit of strange, fetishistic camp. But I don't see it. What Hitchcock as able to do so brilliantly in SHADOW OF A DOUBT was to create a town that felt real, filled with people who felt like actual people. By doing so, when the town's underlying gullibility and naivete (along with the true nature of Uncle Charlie and Charlotte's transformation) are revealed, the believabilty is as shocking as the reveals themselves.
STOKER is absolutely gorgeous, both visually and audibly with Clint Mansell's brilliant score. But what made Hitchcock's film so affecting is conspicuously absent. Nothing in STOKER is palpable. The Stokers don't feel real. They're just shadows.
4 out of 10
