A Cure for Wellness

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect with this latest feature from the man who directed three of the four Pirates of the Caribbean movies and hasn't touched the horror genre since his last (and only) entry in the field, The Ring (2002). But Gore Verbinski is, admittedly, a visionary director, and though A Cure for Wellness doesn't exactly hit the terror and dread of his Japanese remake, it also doesn't fall firmly in the family-friendly fantasy of Jack Sparrow's world either. It's somewhere in the middle. It's surreal, metaphysical, vaguely supernatural, gorgeous to look at it, and gory all at the same time. That's quite the cocktail.

A Cure for Wellness (2017)
Released: February 17, 2017
Director: Gore Verbinski
Screenplay: Justin Haythe

Tagline: "There is a cure"

Cast:
Dane DeHaan as Lockhart
Jason Isaacs as Dr. Heinrich Volmer
Mia Goth as Hannah
Celia Imrie as Victoria Watkins
Harry Groener as Pembroke

Wall Street stockbroker and hopeful social climber Lockhart is sent to a remote village in the Swiss Alps on a mission to bring back his company's CEO from the mysterious and reclusive wellness center in the village's ancient, remodeled castle. At first he's desperate to simply remove the man so that some shady financial missteps will be pinned on the big boss rather than an underling like himself, but after an unfortunate accident, Lockhart's stay at the institute looks to become extended and he begins to suspect that the miraculous treatments and idyllic atmosphere are not what they seem. As he begins to unravel the spa's secrets, he finds that he has been diagnosed with the same arcane illness that keeps the other wealthy patients longing for a cure and his sanity begins to crack.

The asylum-set film is an interesting subset in the horror genre. By default it provides room to explore lots of innate and intense human anxieties: loss of freedom, doubt, lack of control, questioning of one's own mental clarity. It's all very Gothic, which is appropriate as the asylum film essentially grew out of those great Victorian Gothic classics of literature. But what separates A Cure for Wellness from other recent movies in this grouping--movies like Gothika (2003), Shutter Island (2010), and Stonehearst Asylum (2014)--is that this film isn't set in an asylum, it's in a sanitarium. And that distinction makes all the difference.

Asylums are places of forced confinement, quasi-prisons for the severely mentally unwell or the criminally insane. Sanitariums are more like spas, a relaxed place where one would choose to recuperate, often dropping big bucks in order to gain some luxurious chill time. Thematically, this makes A Cure for Wellness carry a sense of the insidious, something dark lurking underneath the surface beauty, and the audience can sense this from the onset. 

"The hills are aliiiiiive"

Because this movie is absolutely stunning. From the natural mountain scenery to the archaic buildings, everything is breathtaking, peaceful, and haunting. The use of teal filters also gives everything a deceptively serene aesthetic that glues your eyes to the screen even during some of the film's more disturbing sequences. This is a credit to the film, though, as it keeps you invested during some of the slower paced and harder to follow moments of the plot. And the pacing is erratic, and the plot does dovetail into some strange tangents at various points, but hey, it looks damn pretty doing it. 

The story could certainly  have been more focused, but there's also a certain satisfaction in watching the scenes unfold naturally, even if it does make for a longer runtime (the film clocks in at 2 hours and 26 minutes). Personally, I didn't necessarily mind this, but for some viewers this can create a sense of frustration, especially near the end, when you just want to get to the damn resolution already and the film refuses to give up the ghost. What we get at the end is a curious concoction that makes the film both anti-industrialist and also Gothic forbidden romance. It works, but not as well as it would have worked had it been just one of those movies.

The leads are great and turn each of their unlikable characters (Lockhart, Volmer, and Hannah) into compelling portraits as they navigate a very twisted and bizarre love-triangle of sorts. Weaker performers could have easily botched this. In the end, Verbinski delivers a film that's substantial and original, as well as dazzling to view. Tightening of the script and a better examination of what the "sickness" and the "cure" actually were (before the revelation) would have heightened the experience. I think this is a film that mainstream horror fans will lose patience with quickly, but that us diehards will salute. Some of the billing likened it to The Shining (1980) but that's way off the mark. It's more in line with Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). So if you pine for trippy tales of doomed love, then this is the medicine for what ails you. 

"Say ahhhhhOHMYGOD"

A Cure for Wellness (2017)

5-Totally Terrifying

4-Crazy Creepy

3-Fairly Frightening

2-Slightly Scary

1-Hardly Horror