The Box was one of those movies whose concept sounds incredibly silly regardless of how you try to portray it in countless trailers. Stack on top of that a couple of hit or miss actors and one of the wackiest directors on the block and you've got one of the hardest cinematic sells of the year. The one marketing saving grace was Frank Langella who never fails to impress. So with the deck stacked against it, I went into The Box expecting nothing more than a competent quasi-thriller with the standard Richard Kelly crazy. What I got was without a doubt one of my top films of the year.

The Lewis's are a young family; husband, wife, and son, living in Virginia in 1976. When financial problems start to pile up, a mysterious man, scarred by a lightning strike, appears at their door with a proposition: Press a single button, and someone somewhere in the world that you don't know will die, but you will receive a briefcase of $1 million cash. When the Lewis' press the button, Arlington Steward (Langella) appears again at their door with their money, but the money brings with it a whole lot of weird shit.

With Richard Kelly at the wheel, I wasn't prepared to see a movie that I'd actually understand. Trying to wrap your head around Donnie Darko is a genius task, but you won't need that sort of brain power to understand The Box. There's definitely an element of weird once answers start to unravel towards the end, but ultimately the Richard Kelly is dialed back and despite the few things that leave you wondering "what the fuck" aloud to your neighbor, the general idea gets comes across without too much confoundery. 

The performances from the leads, James Marsden and Cameron Diaz, were shockingly good. Not because they were mind-blowingly brilliant, but because they are generally kind of shitty and seeing them do a decent job was almost unnatural. I can only warn you that Diaz is sporting a little bit of an accent so do your best to get past it. It's not bad, but you've never heard her do that before so you may spend most of the time giggling at it. Despite the solid performances from all involved, Frank Langella as Arlington Steward remains the shining star. 

Watching The Box, you'll realize soon enough that it feels a little different than what you're used to seeing. The whole thing feels like it was shot in the 1970s with 2000s equipment and it works very well. It feels kind of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is a good thing. There's a lot of old school techniques and style making it very interesting to look at if you're into that sort of thing. In the same vein, it took me all of ten minutes to fall in love with that score, which sounds like it was lifted straight out of The Shining. 

There's a scene or two that crop up where the actor's sole purpose is nothing more than to be an exposition sponge. Instead of smoothly flowing the story into the scenes, characters would just spit words at each other until the scene was sufficiently explained. None of it was exactly awful, but the story moved very naturally save for these few scene so they stuck out like a sore thumb.

For those of you who are looking for an action packed thriller or horror piece, this is not for you. It's very slow and deliberate, the story takes the full two hours to unfold, and there really are no scenes that will get your blood flowing like a Die Hard movie. But it's a movie that works on almost every level as long as you're will to accept the element of sci-fi that is sprung upon you about 3/4 of the way through the film. It's a weird concept that's presented in a very believable way and Richard Kelly was the perfect choice to put behind the wheel. Beautiful look, solid acting, provocative story.

4.5 Stars