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Gothika
So Halle
Berry has never really been a draw for me. I acknowledge that
she is a fine actress, but I've never been able to forgive
her for her wussy portrayal of Storm in the first X-Men movie.
X2 warmed me up a bit, but
I'm still not what you'd call a fan. I went into Gothika neutrally,
having avoided previews or spoilers, so I didn't know quite
what to expect.
Halle
Berry plays Dr. Miranda Grey, a psychiatrist in an asylum
for criminally insane women. Professionally she is a rational,
logical scientist firmly grounded in reality. She treats her
patients with a cold detachment, and wonders why she can't
get through to them. Her personal life is bound to the hospital
as well. Miranda's husband, played by Charles S. Dutton, is
the man in charge, and there is a current of sexual tension
between her and a co-worker played by Robert Downey Jr.
At the
start of the film Miranda is treating Chloe, a patient who
claims nightly trysts with the devil in her cell. Miranda's
analytical approach to Chloe's psychosis fails to break through
to her patient. When she begs Chloe to trust her, Chloe simply
says, "You can't trust someone who thinks you're crazy."
Frustrated, Miranda ends the session and laments her perceived
shortcomings to her husband. Dutton's Dr. Doug Grey has a
paternal, mentor/student relationship with his wife, and she
clearly submits to his guidance.
Miranda and Dr. Pete Graham (a strung-out looking Downey)
seem to have a more equitable relationship than she does with
her husband, and their friendship hints at future infidelity.
Entrusted by Doug to make sure his wife gets home safely through
the storm outside, Pete dutifully follows her most of the
way. After he leaves her, she hits a roadblock that diverts
her down a spooky lane and over a Sleepy Hollow-esque covered
bridge. On the other side of the bridge, a dripping wet girl
appears in the road, and Miranda swerves and crashes into
a ditch. Unharmed, she extracts herself from her car and staggers
to the road where the moaning and incoherent girl bursts into
flames and grips Miranda's face. Miranda blacks out and awakens
in a cell in her own asylum, where Pete reveals that she has
brutally murdered her husband.
Zany antics
ensue…
Well,
not really. What follows is one of the most tense and creepy
horror/thrillers I've seen in a while. Tightly plotted and
paced, each scene adds to the atmosphere of dread and confusion.
Miranda's rational mind struggles to wrap itself around the
madness confronting her, without losing herself in it. Perhaps
most frightening of all, is how the definition of sanity is
completely subjective to the person in control, and the more
Miranda protests, the crazier she seems. Miranda must eventually
let go of reason and lucidity in order to find the truth,
and it's not clear what that will cost her.
As I pondered
Berry's performance, I was struck by how calculated it seemed.
In certain actors one can see the wheels turning as they plot
out their performances, and it's always kind of bugged me.
Berry, especially in contrast with Cruz' visceral Chloe seemed
almost mechanical, and I was ready to dock her a point or
two. Then I thought about it further in terms of Chloe, and
I realized I wasn't seeing Berry's calculations, I was seeing
Miranda's. Miranda is a scientist, and Chloe is a madwoman,
and it's Chloe's fluidity that Miranda must adopt to survive
within the asylum. There's a great dichotomy between these
two, and their scenes together are some of the most fascinating
in the film.
So, yeah,
I guess I've gained further appreciation for Halle Berry as
an actress.
Penelope
Cruz is stark and chilling as Chloe, and I enjoyed every minute
of her performance. As Miranda's guide through the madhouse,
her relatively small role is one of the most memorable. Stripped
down and raw, Cruz's Chloe is a woman clinging to madness
as a shield from the insanity of the real world, and I wish
we'd seen more of her.
Robert
Downey Jr. looks to be playing on his bad boy reputation,
and I constantly felt his Pete was up to something throughout
the movie. He just didn't seem trustworthy. It's always good
to see Downey on screen. He's always engaging and he brings
a comforting (if shifty) presence to the movie.
There
were some problems, however. The music was overwrought; it
tried so hard to raise the tension in places that it became
comical. The resolution took a little to long, and I found
the final scene implausible. The dialog was kinda silly in
places too, drawing a few contemptuous snorts from the audience
with lines like, "He opened me like a flower of pain."
There's not much more I can point out without treading into
spoiler territory, so I'll let it go at that.
Oh but
the scares…there are a lot of great scares in this flick.
We had a vocal crowd, and they gasped and screeched at all
of the right points. The movie was genuinely scary, and although
it had its share of cheap "boo!" moments, there
were some drawn out scenes that were good and frightening.
As a horror film it's pretty solid, and it took me a while
to figure out the end. I give kudos to a movie that doesn't
give away its secrets, and this one kept me guessing almost
all the way through.
Rating:
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