The Box (2009)

I can remember reading “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson when I was in middle school. I remember liking it and its purpose. I love the anecdotal story about the strength of humanity, caring for your neighbor and that there are consequences for our actions, but something was lost between paper and film. Through the first half of the film there is a similar feel to that of the short story and it was understood what was taking place, but just as quickly as we begin to understand everything, we lose it equally as fast. We get hints of what is meant to be gained, but with everything happening, like I previously mentioned, it’s easy to lose sight of the potential lessons. As the film progresses it becomes a story of survival. That’s not typically a bad thing, a thriller may typically have someone on the edge of their seat, but this film had so many unanswered questions that it became a cluster of confusion rather than something interesting. I feel that if Richard Kelly had answered more questions this wasn’t far from being a decent film. Along with issues regarding the story, there were a number of characters that served a purpose that was almost unanswerable. Characters like Charles and Dana seemed to have meaning one moment and then serve no purpose the next. Steph and I talked back and forth trying to figure out what was meant to come of or from them. We never came to an agreement, as the film never really led us in any one direction and certainly never gave us a definitive answer. Even with the tremendous number of flaws this film had, I felt this could have been a really good story. This was so close to being a success, at least to me. If Kelly could have just explained everything so that his audience could understand, this really would have been a decent film. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0362478/