'The Box' movie review

Richard Matheson got his point across in 12 pages. The Twilight Zone conveyed the same message in 25 minutes. So my question is this: Why does it take writer and director Richard Kelly nearly two hours to make the same simple statement?

The Box (which is loosely based on Matheson's short story Button, Button) is an over-complication of a story that should have been kept simple. The premise is pretty straight forward. A strange man named Arlington Steward (played by Frank Langella) delivers a package to a young couple named Norma and Arthur Lewis. When the couple (played by Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) opens the package to find a simple wooden device with a button, they are confronted with a moral dilemma. If they push the button, they will receive one million dollars. As soon as they push the button though, someone in the world, who they don't know, will die.

"The short story was almost like a great set up for act one of a movie," says Kelly, who also wrote and directed the cult classic, Donnie Darko. "There was one line in the short story that sent my mind racing. It was when [the couple] asked who Mr. Steward worked for, and he said 'I can assure you that the organization is large and international in scope.' And that to me was just so fascinating because I had so many questions." Kelly decided to write a screenplay for the story to look further into the background of the characters. He wanted to try to explain exactly who Mr. Steward worked for and what the purpose of the button-unit was.

Instead, the moral of the story gets lost throughout the film. A wonderful work of social commentary is quickly destroyed when a ridiculously over-played plot twist reveals the true source of the box.

Setting cliché antagonists aside, the storyline is hard to follow. A plot that starts off simple suddenly feels like an artsy remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Add to the mix the mediocre performances by the cast (Diaz excluded). Even though I was not a fan of her southern accent and a few more unnecessary tangents, then what you have is a beautifully thought out moral drowning in a never ending ocean of already-seen-it plot twists.

A few moments do shine through the cloudiness of the film. As was mentioned, Cameron Diaz has a few good moments in the film. During the various emotional moments in the movie, she is able to save what would have otherwise been laughable performances by the other cast members.

The moral of the story is a good one. Our actions have consequences; to ignore those that we feel don't affect us directly leads to destruction. Kelly is quick to compare the film to our modern economic crisis. "We all are trying to live a better life and achieve a better life," he says, "but it's ultimately about the things that we strive to possess [rather than the consequences that our actions have]."

Diaz also believes that society has been pushing the proverbial button all along. "In today's society I think that we're proving that we're already pushing the button more than ever by taking out credit cards, or dumping stuff into the ocean; doing all these things that we don't think we're going to have to take responsibility for. But ultimately it does have an effect and we do have to suffer the consequences of that."