Last night my sister Victoria and I went to see A Cure for Wellness, Gore Verbinski's new psychological thriller starring Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, and Mia Goth. I was really interested in this movie from the trailer, I don't... necessarily... do well with horror movies, so I was a little unsure how I'd react, but I was hoping for more of a psychological thriller along the same lines as Shutter Island. Thankfully, that's sort of what I got.
To start off, this movie was beautifully directed. The cinematography was exceptional, and the location was beautiful. It was filmed at Hohenzollern Castle in Germany which fit the setting of a secluded, European wellness centre perfectly. I'm not a huge Verbinski fan, I mean, he did do the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, which was also a visual feast, but aside from those films, he hasn't done anything that's been exceptionally beautiful. But I also am a bit of a cinematography snob. But this movie, at first, had me so drawn in. The cinematography was the perfect blend of art and show. I'm a huge fan of artistic films, and this movie definitely catered to the photographer and visual artist in me... for the most part.
The acting was also very well done, DeHaan, Isaacs, and Goth played their parts hauntingly well. I did, feel like DeHaan was a little bit... miss-casted, I really like DeHaan, and I realize he's like thirty years old in real life, but he just looks like a little boy. And I was never sold that he was an up-and-coming executive of a giant company. There was one scene where he was hobbling around a steam room shirtless, and I just kept thinking, "This boy is like, twelve." Nevertheless, his acting was SPOT on, but it always is. DeHaan's awesome.
** Below, there are going to be spoilers, so if you don't want the movie spoiled for you, stop reading! **
There's a point in the film where it should have ended. Throughout the film, there's this motif of a ballerina figurine DeHaan's mother's character painted, she has her eyes shut and doesn't know she's dreaming. At one point, he gives this figurine to Goth's character, and it helps her realize that there might be a way for to leave this wellness centre that has somehow enraptured all of it's guests to the point where they never want to leave. They really should have called this movie Hotel California. Anyway, at this point in the film, DeHaan has been "brainwashed" to believe that the wellness centre is the best place for him to be. He says to Goth's character, "Why would anyone want to leave?" And then there's this beautiful shot of her leaving, and him sitting there, looking out at the edge of the cliff to the beautiful mountains of the Alps.
AND THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE END OF THE MOVIE. CUT TO BLACK. ROLL CREDITS. THAT'S THE END.
(As a side note, had I been writing the script, I would have made that ending a BIT different. Throughout the movie, DeHaan's character is haunted by the suicide of his father, who threw himself off a bridge in New York. If I had been writing the script, I would have cut to DeHaan's character after that line to Goth, have a tear run down his cheek, symbolizing his ever present internal struggle. Close up on the figurine in his hands. Cut to the shot from behind him, showing the mountains, he stands up, walks to edge of the cliff, and throws himself off, just as his father had. That's my ending!)
UNFORTAUNTLEY, the movie didn't end there... and then it became a shit-show. From there it spirals into a more pathetic supernatural ending, where everything is revealed. It's discovered that Isaacs, who runs the wellness centre, is a 300 year old, eel-man... that's right... and EEL-MAN, who was once a creepy, incestuous baron of the castle. and Goth is his hundreds of years old daughter, who he's now trying to sleep with, because he's an incestuous freak. The staff at the wellness centre are all cultists who worship him, and then we get an action sequence where DeHaan saves the girl and the eel-man dies.
I hated it.
First of all, all those artistic shots, the close-ups, the little subtle shots that Verbinski showcases in the first two-thirds of the movie suddenly disappear. It's suddenly more action packed, and it looses it's artistic beauty. My sister and I felt the ending seemed very tacked on. Almost like they showed the original to an audience, probably American, and they didn't like that things were left unknown, so they had to hastily come up with this eel-man gimmick, and an action scene. It was just awful. In those last fifteen/twenty minutes, the film went from being beautifully eerie and mysterious, to a huge disaster.
I get that most viewers are not satisfied when the strings are left untied at the end of films, but sometimes, and especially with psychological thrillers, it's better the leave the audience wondering if everything was in the character's head all along or if they were actually happening to them. There's this constant need for a clean ending, and sometimes, those endings don't do justice to the whole story, sometimes it deconstructs the subtle beauty and mystery of a story, and this is the perfect example.
So would I recommend this movie? Yes, despite the ending, I would... just, stop it when DeHaan says, "Why would anyone want to leave?". Trust me... you'll thank me for it.
