A friend recommended The Box, which is a cinematic adaptation of a Richard Matheson short story, Button Button. For those of you unfamiliar with Matheson, he is a legend, and I plan to read all his work one day! This story was previously adapted for the eighties version of The Twilight Zone, an anthology television series. Set in 1976 Virginia, Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play happily married parents who get a conditional offer from a mysterious man, Arlington Steward, whom Frank Langella plays, then learn of the broader consequences of their decision.
The Box started on an atmospheric high note. The composition is meticulous. The production design is seamless. The acting is flawless. As the story introduces elements of the story, it feels like a tense, high stakes set up that will pay off after watching the one hour fifty-five minute movie, but by the end, it felt like a complete waste of time.
The Box expands the unintended consequence story, whose lesson is to discourage greed, indifference or callousness to others and self-interest by appealing to self-preservation, until it is bursting with content and potential that it never lives up to. It was so disappointing, and it only comes in second to Under the Silver Lake, which intentionally tweaked its viewers’ nose whereas this film earnestly and sincerely thought it was knocking it out of the park. It reminded me of when I was completely absorbed in the conspiracy and broader elements that television series such as Lost or The X-Files presented only to realize too late that the story’s details came second to a chance to stay in business. Apparently asking for more follow through in a movie is too much to ask.
Once you finish The Box and can reflect comprehensively on the conspiracy, it is one of those stories that does not work. What is the end game? It is not enough to simply have a tense atmosphere, reference Sartre’s No Exit, a set of creepy circumstances and evocative CGI. After I watched the movie, I discovered that the film has autobiographical elements for writer and director Richard Kelly so maybe the story is psychologically logical to him, but for the rest of us, a lot of it is extraneous and frustrating even if we “get” the story. Kelly is no Panos Cosmatos who can silently and clearly convey concepts using surreal imagery. Apparently the parents in this film are modelled on Kelly’s parents so is the child in this film a proxy for him in the film? I loved one of Kelly’s earlier films, Donnie Darko. If it turns out that Kelly and Ridley Scott share the same faith, then it ties all the elements together, but it would have served the story better if he did not use Matheson’s story as the premise and thought more about the conspiracy before committing it to celluloid.
Interpret The Box through a Prometheus lens, but instead of Space Jesus, we get a Space John the Baptist. (I actually hated that movie too, but love the prequel sequel because xenomorphs, duh). I would prefer that people boldly proclaim their beliefs than vaguely dance around it. It is set at Christmas time. There are tons of baptisms, one way to salvation and two ways to eternal damnation, healings, resurrections and possessions, and a wedding (the first event when Jesus performed a miracle) although none of these elements would be described using the aforementioned terms because the context seems less supernatural than sci-fi. It feels more like a slight twist on the Gift of the Magi, but without the courage of actually being twisted because Kelly actually likes his parents and insists on the fictional versions being loving people even though their opening actions prove otherwise. It seems as if he was not ready to wrestle with them as imperfect people.
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Steward worked for NASA on the Viking 1 probe to Mars. Lightning hits and kills him, but that lightning is really first contact with Martians. He rises from the dead, and these Martians are his “Employer.” Steward is compelled to experiment. He compulsively tests subjects, but they keep failing, including the parents, and presumably this test will go on forever since it started before the movie and continued after it ended.
NSA and NASA are subsequently complicit. NASA provides employees’ psych tests and office space to Steward. NSA provides office supplies, which includes company cars, and appears to be studying Steward. One or both of the government agency probably provides the cash. Steward never has a nosebleed. The CIA is also involved by creating a Human Resource Exploitation Manual, which contributed to the experiment’s parameters.
There are three sets of people affected, but all people are allegedly tested according to one character. The experiment’s subjects are married couples with one child. What happens to the adult survivors of the experiment? The authorities take them away, or they get in accidents, but could get transported through death as happens to Arthur while driving with the first surviving subject shown in movie.
Steward’s wife, the wife’s student, the babysitter and others get nosebleeds when the Employer controls them to herd the subjects so they move forward with the experiment. The movie never explains how the Employer decides which individuals to control or how, but that control does not always last forever and can wane. My theory was that they are people who failed the experiment, but that theory does not work because some of these people are too young to be married or appear too old to be forty. What the hell?!?
There are other people who act as if they are taciturn extras in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Masses of people move in synchronicity. Their noses never bleed, and they never break character. They do not talk. They also move the subjects in the direction that they want. They could be the same as the second group, but just behave differently in a group setting. The movie never clears it up.
There are multiple tests: the money or random murder, choosing a passage as if the subject was Indiana Jones looking for the Holy Grail; disabled child or sacrifice life; Rorschach reaction to Steward’s disfigured face. Going through the passage is perceived differently depending on if you are a subject or not. Their kid sees them acting like zombies, but she passes out, and the father goes through light and emerges in water, which objectively ruins their house. What is the significance of number two? Why help people cheat? What is the point of bringing the parents somewhere just to return them home or to a base? Why do they need to go through the passage? What is the point of multiple testing indefinitely? Since everyone is not eligible to be an experiment subject, it is not as if all of humanity can get tested soooooooooo this story feels dumb. While I love a government alien conspiracy as much as anybody, I need everything to get tied up in a pretty bow in the end.
I do not practice employment law, but I would argue that they should definitely sue the father’s employer because the first test is fair compensation for being a subject to an experiment then the jurisdiction should charge the employers for conducting unauthorized experiments.
The Box collapses under the weight of all these loose ends. Melding classic 1950s alien tests of humanity with Matheson’s morality lesson is fine, but the test needs to be finite and have consequences. The infinite element left me dissatisfied. Either humanity passed or failed. If the aliens are never going to pull the trigger, then at least hint to their real endgame if it is knowing that humanity will fail and subjugating them afterwards by gaining access to corporal form. It makes more sense that Kelly has simply substituted God for aliens thus the infinite and moral nature of the test instead of an ultimatum with undertones of social commentary as demonstrated in movies such as The Day The Earth Stood Still or television series such as The 100.
