Stoker (2013)

While this year has more or less stunk so far on the cinematic front, the last month or so has at least given us its fair share of well-directed nonsense. First Harmony Korine gave us the great looking, intriguing, but ultimately empty Spring Breakers, and now Park Chan-wook has leapt across the Pacific Ocean for his first English-language film Stoker, which comes from a script by Wentworth “That Dude from Prison Break” Miller. Like Spring Breakers, it is a film made worthwhile almost entirely by its direction, which is able to wring suspense out of thin air and sustain it for the film’s entire running time. It is a violent, sometimes twisted film, but Park Chan-wook puts it on the screen in masterfully stylish fashion. Where it ultimately ends up is a tad disappointing, but while the ball of yarn is unraveling it makes for a tense, captivating ride.

The film revolves around the wealthy Stoker family, which has just lost its patriarch Richard (Dermot Mulroney). This leaves the already strange 18-year-old India (Mia Wasikowska) in a state of depression, and she has little interest in becoming closer to her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). After the funeral proceedings, Richard’s brother—and India’s uncle—Charlie (Matthew Goode) comes by the house and offers to move in and help out. That’s about all I feel comfortable discussing, considering the only way once can really enjoy Stoker is if they simply sit back and let it happen to them. If you know too much about the plot going in, there’s a very good chance it won’t connect with you the same way it might connect with a more ignorant viewer.

Even though as a movie it’s mostly a bunch of nonsense, Stoker may go down as one of the best-directed movies of the year. In lesser hands it could have felt like nothing but empty shock tactics; an endless barrage of creepiness and bad taste that ultimately amounts to nothing. Somehow Park Chan-wook has taken the rather thin material and turned it into something arresting. The way he uses dissolves, flashbacks, cross-cutting, the moving camera, it all works together just about perfectly. If the script worked some of its considerable flaws out, this might have had a chance at being a masterpiece. In fact, for much of its running time I was ready to sing its praises from the top of the nearest mountain. Only in hindsight does one realize the considerable weaknesses in the material. But while it lasts, it’s something else.

Not to be ignored is the terrific performance of Wasikowska in the lead, and she continues to make her case as one of the better actresses of her generation working today. I’m also a relative fan of some of the other acting work seen here. Kidman doesn’t get a ton to do besides play the put-upon widow who falls for the handsome newcomer, but she does good work with what she has. I’m slightly more mixed on Goode, who is great so long as he’s asked to play the charming-but-creeeeeepy uncle who moves into the house. I bought just about all that. I was less sold by a certain turn his character takes late in the film, and I fear he doesn’t really do anything unexpected with it. The twist that comes doesn’t really have too much of an impact, and he isn’t quite able to pick up the slack and sell it.

The more Stoker commits to its nightmarish side, the better off it is. Like the aforementioned Spring Breakers, one of the best scenes here involves the playing of a piano. (Also, Wikipedia informs me that apparently Harmony Korine has a cameo in Stoker. And we all know Wikipedia is always right!) Without giving that scene away, it is the perfect example of what this film does when it’s firing on all cylinders. There is virtually no dialogue, and all of the drama comes from the acting and the hypnotic direction. It’s a tad disappointing that most of Stoker’s pleasures are purely surface-level, but in a year as crappy as 2013 has been so far there’s something to be said for a film as stylish as this. There may not be a lot of substance, but who needs it really?

Grade: B+