The Box - Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

I don't know what The Box means. Come to think of it, I don't know what Richard Kelly means. None of his films make sense. Donnie Darko doesn't make sense. Southland Tales doesn't make sense. Domino, which he wrote, doesn't make sense. Knowing, which he worked on for a long time, makes sense, but Alex Proyas made Dark City, and he made that make sense.

In my opinion, The Twilight Zone is one of the best television series in history. Not that I'm an expert. It is a perfect concept, along with its peers. Night Gallery, The Outer Limits, Ray Bradbury Theatre, Tales from the Darkside, Amazing Stories, etc. They present weird concepts meant to horrify, frighten, and provoke thought. And the best part is, they don't have to make sense, and they don't have to draw any conclusions. They can be enigmatic. They can tease and tease and tease, then be over with, and you don't feel like you're getting ripped off, because each episode is self-contained. The mystery is the point, not the solution.

Feature films and ongoing narrative television series are different. Take Lost for example. It lost me in season three, when it continued to add mysteries without solving any of them. The Box is like that. I can only go so far before I start wanting answers.

Here is a film based on the simplest of premises - a down-on-their-luck couple is given a box with a button on top, and two options; Push the button, and someone they don't know will die, and they will receive one million dollars, or; Don't push the button, and give the box back, wherein the same options will be presented to someone they don't know. We have the makings of a Twilight Zone episode here, and indeed, The Box is based on one, written by the grand master of suspense stories, Richard Matheson, who was responsible for Duel, I Am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and The Legend of Hell House, among others.

The problem with The Box is that it has only enough material for a half hour. Stretched to an hour and a half, it's thin. Stretched to an hour and fifty minutes, it's Swiss cheese. Once the couple, played by James Marsden and Cameron Diaz, are presented with the box and what it's all about, they can only go through the pros and cons of pushing the button so many times before that button gets pushed. The strange thing about Richard Kelly's film is, the drawing out of the premise isn't the problem; It's all the other stuff he piles on top.

There was a point in watching The Box where I gave up trying to figure out what Kelly was attempting to tell me, and just sat back and waited for it to be over. Sure, there were pretty pictures all along the way, and the actors had me fully invested, and Kelly sure does know how to move the camera around, but it was all complications and no solutions. By the end of the film, I didn't know if Frank Langella was an alien or a super human. I knew he had been struck by lightning, and that he could control people's minds, and that he, apparently, had control over water, and could form it into funny shapes and teleport people through it, or something, but I have no idea what this all adds up to.

Was there supposed to be some profound realization about mortality, or was it a commentary on the evils of science and advancing technology? I know there's a quote from Arthur C. Clarke, something to the tune of, "Once technology advances past a certain state, it all becomes magic," and at the beginning of the film, Cameron Diaz lectures on Sartre, and that has to mean something, right?

I can only imagine Richard Kelly lounging around reading philosophy while watching The Twilight Zone, then nodding off and having a dream like this film. It's certainly hallucinatory, I'll give him that. People's noses start bleeding for no reason at all, there are weird teenagers with homicidal expressions on their faces flashing peace symbols, Santa causes a car accident, Cameron Diaz has only one toe on her right foot, and a bunch of old people walk around like zombies, and end up at a pool at a motor lodge off the highway. And it takes place in the '70's!

There is a log of rocket science in this movie. Literally. The Marsden character works at NASA, and wants to be an astronaut. There is a lot of talk of the Viking mission to Mars, and whether traces of life will be discovered there. I don't know what it adds up to. There are drawings of people being compelled by beams shooting out of their thoraxes, just like there are in Donnie Darko, and probably in Southland Tales, for all I know. I don't know what that adds up to, either.

My guess is, Richard Kelly knows somewhere in the back of his mind what this all means. Sometimes, when he's not quite awake, he mumbles explanations for all these things that, if written down, might make a good e.e. cummings poem. But in the light of day, once it's all edited together and set to music, all it does is add and add and add, without adding up to anything.