The Box (2009)
Directed by Richard Kelly
Norma and Arthur Lewis, a suburban couple with a young child, receive a simple wooden box as a gift, which bears fatal and irrevocable consequences. A mysterious stranger delivers the message that the box promises to bestow upon its owner $1 million with the press of a button. However pressing this button will simultaneously cause the death of another human being somewhere in the world; someone they don't know. With just 24 hours to have the box in their possession, Norma and Arthur find themselves in the cross-hairs of a startling moral dilemma and must face the true nature of their humanity.
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What critics compared The Box to
Mitchell’s work here could be most easily compared to that of gonzo auteur Richard Kelly, the man behind Donnie Darko (which I can’t stand), Southland Tales (which I find crazy in all the right ways), and The Box (which I have no opinion of).
Thematically, The Adjustment Bureau does at times remind of Richard Kelly’s underrated The Box .
During a first watch, my mind went back to Richard Kelly’s The Box (2009), another modern riff on The Twilight Zone, where a married couple learns they’ll be given $1 million if they press a button in a mysterious box, even it will kill two strangers.
Time Lapse is therefore in the spirit of Richard Matheson’s “Button, Button” (adapted cinematically as The Box) or W.W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw”.
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2. If nothing else, Annabelle gave me a new appreciation for all the period clutter in Richard Kelly's The Box.
It’s a delicate, occasionally “pleasant” selection of music, though unlike Win Butler and Régine Chassagne‘s own work for Richard Kelly’s The Box, enaction rings somewhat too softly for us to really notice in any worthwhile way; more overbearing orchestrations are not preferable, needless to say, but why doesn’t a great band’s effort feel as if it’s worth more than a name tag? (For better or for worse, the only moment in which we’d properly detect their distinct touch is during the end credits, in which a haunting excerpt of “Supersymmetry” — the 11-minute-plus closing track on their upcoming Reflektor — gets a final say.)
Charlie strikes a secret deal with Debra's (Hope Davis, "The Secret Lives of Dentists") wealthy husband Marvin (James Rebhorn, "The Box") that will get each of them what they want - $100K and the summer free to travel - but gets more than he bargained for when Max (Dakota Goyo, "Thor") insists on joining him on the underground boxing circuit in "Real Steel."