Stoker (2013)
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Following her father Richard's death in an unexplained road accident, reclusive teenager India Stoker withdraws further into the quiet rural life she shares with her emotionally disturbed mother Evie. But her curiosity is stirred when her mysterious uncle Charlie, who she has never met, suddenly arrives unannounced. Told that the darkly charismatic Charlie will now be staying at the house, India's initial well-founded distrust of her uncle's motivations begins to waver as she finds herself becoming ever more deeply entranced by his sinister charms.
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The bad vibes Uncle Charlie emits as his courtship of Evelyn inspires disgust (or is it jealousy?) in India can't help but remind you of Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie in Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt."
There are nods to Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and the beautiful but dysfunctional families of Douglas Sirk's lush melodramas, but Park's usual themes of sex, death and revenge are still very much in evidence and - happily - they have been only slightly toned down.
The screenplay by actor-turned-writer Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) definitely betrays his background in literary studies, as the story’s revelations about a frozen-in-time aristocratic family’s deep dark secrets and still pulsing vein of murderousness feels one part Emily Bronte, one part Tennessee Williams, and one part Bram Stoker (hence the title, we might imagine), although its twisted uncle-niece relationship and use of the name “Uncle Charlie” immediately evokes Alfred Hitchcock’s disturbing Shadow of a Doubt (1943), which turned the platitudes of small-town Americana on its head.
The American debut of kind-to-be-cruel South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (“Old Boy,” “Lady Vengeance”), based on a script by the actor Wentworth Miller (“Prison Break”) with rewrites by Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) is a brisk, chilly variation on themes in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt,” but it never finds a convincing shape of its own.
(Since the film has definite ties to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 film Shadow of a Doubt, it seems not unlike the name Charles is coincidental.)
He's there after a long absence for his brother's funeral and is always referred to as Uncle Charlie, an invitation to identify him with Joseph Cotten's charming psychopathic murderer in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt .
Goode’s take on the film’s mysterious antagonist is frighteningly reminiscent of Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates in Psycho , while Kidman’s turn is blessed with subtlety that makes Evie’s instability all the more engaging.
The plot of Stoker borrows liberally from Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, in which a young girl falls under the sway of another mysterious “Uncle Charlie,” and the visuals owe much to Psycho.
Actor Wentworth Miller's ('Prison Break') first produced script pays homage to Hitchcock's Uncle Charlie ("Shadow of a Doubt") with little dabs of "Psycho" (a motel, stuffed birds, reflections in a policeman's Ray Bans, a swinging cellar light, an unharmed fly) and a dollop of "The Bad Seed" for good measure, but the film impresses more as artful craftsmanship than emotionally satisfying thriller.
That they’re further represented musically – particularly via “Duet,” a Philip Glass composition whose on-screen performance by Wasikowska and Goode ranks among the hottest sex-free scenes in recent memory – is a testament to the completeness of Park’s vision, which rivals Alfred Hitchcock’s work in Psycho and Stanley Kubrick’s in The Shining in terms of turning storytelling clichés into something fresh and creative.
There is no doubt about Charlie’s sinister intent as when India glimpses him standing in the distance he looks like Norman Bates from Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) standing in silhouette next to the hotel.
Park has said he was sorry he didn’t get to direct the recent bio-pic Hitchcock; but Stoker is way Hitchcockier than that staid fiction about the making of Psycho.
Though Chan-wook’s a self-proclaimed Hitchcock disciple – citing Vertigo as the feature film that inspired him to ditch his art-critic aspirations and direct deranged thrillers – he understands that every affecting Hitch homage needs just enough De Palma to keep things on edge.
It is a known fact that Korean director Park Chan-wook was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in his formative years – and that inspiration is on full display in much of Stoker.
Miller has said that Hitchock's film Shadow of a Doubt was his inspiration for the film, which is fitting because Park cites Vertigo as the film that made him want to become a director.
A grisly strangulation explicitly recalls Frenzy; Wasikowka’s wound-up response to it goes a good deal further than Hitch could (even at that late point in his career).
He’s a spectral presence that never achieves full definition, though he is pretty handy when he gets a belt around your neck — not unlike the necktie killer of Hitchcock’s Frenzy.
The Hitchcock allusions don't stop there: India is a taxidermist, like Norman Bates in "Psycho"; and a strangulation that occurs is as ugly as the one in "Frenzy."
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An insect motif evokes Blue Velvet, a violent nature doc on a motel TV nods to Wild at Heart, and much of the rest pays homage to Twin Peaks: comical high-school toughs (including a biker teen at a roadhouse), the threat of incest, crossing train tracks to a dangerous woodsy rendezvous, dreamy ceiling-to-floor drapes, and frequent close-ups of saddle shoes, as a signifier of innocence on the cusp of sexual awakening.
An insect motif evokes Blue Velvet, a violent nature doc on a motel TV nods to Wild at Heart, and much of the rest pays homage to Twin Peaks: comical high-school toughs (including a biker teen at a roadhouse), the threat of incest, crossing train tracks to a dangerous woodsy rendezvous, dreamy ceiling-to-floor drapes, and frequent close-ups of saddle shoes, as a signifier of innocence on the cusp of sexual awakening.
Like Steven Soderbergh with this year’s Side Effects, Park plays at hiding the obvious truth via homage (you’ll see snippets of Psycho, Strangers on a Train, and even Vertigo here) while inventing a few dread mechanisms himself.
The American debut of kind-to-be-cruel South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (“Old Boy,” “Lady Vengeance”), based on a script by the actor Wentworth Miller (“Prison Break”) with rewrites by Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) is a brisk, chilly variation on themes in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt,” but it never finds a convincing shape of its own.
The script for the film was written by none other than Prison Break and Resident Evil 4 star Wentworth Miller – with some obvious contributions by Secretary writer Erin Cressida Wilson.
The screenplay—written by first-timer Wentworth Miller but worked over by the kinky Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary, Chloe)—is a sexualized take on Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943).
But for my money, this movie belongs alongside “Secretary,” “Ginger Snaps” and “Thirteen” in the family of deliciously dark female coming-of-age stories.
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The movie wants to be Hitchcockian, but it's the flat-footed Hitchcock of Marnie that Park evokes.
Both the script and the direction continually echo familiar literary and cinematic icons, from the family's name to the Shakespearean family plot to the prowling interloper (see Robert Mitchum in the 1950s classic The Night of the Hunter).