I was surprised by how gorgeous this film looked.

The last 15 minutes or so feel rather awkward and silly but everything before that was effectively creepy. Dane DeHaan was really good. It is a little disappointing that this is almost 2 and a half hours and the conclusion ends up being rather unsatisfactory but overall I thought it was a solid film.

The acting (Isaacs in particular), score, and cinematography are all impressive. But the movie is too long and the final half hour and the way it ended didn't sit well with me. Tough to grade this one.

6/10

Gore Verbinski has always had a remarkable talent for arrested visuals, and anyone who's seen the trailer for this will guess A Cure for Wellness is a treat in that department. And it absolutely is, and features so very strong performances. It unfortunately feels like it's about 7 hours long. I think the problem, rather than the runtime, is that 1) Verbinski fails to truly escalate the tension and 2) I felt ahead of every one of the film's twist, and that makes the wait for the twists to come even longer. The final 20 or so minutes are also very, very bizarre, almost entirely divorced from the tone of the previous 2 hours. The ending in particular I don't quite what to make of, but I wasn't left with a positive impression.

I feel like it was a missed opportunity that

On the eve of a controversial merger, an ambitious junior executive (Dane DeHaan) is dispatched from the United States to Switzerland to retrieve his corporation's unstable CEO from a secluded spa and wellness center where the outwardly charismatic and refined, but guarded lead doctor (Jason Isaacs) provides ambiguous diagnoses and interminable treatments. Our antihero almost instantly finds himself caught in a web of oppressive, unhelpful bureaucracy and foreboding secrecy, and his anxiety increases tenfold when a car crash leaves him unable to leave. A Cure for Wellness is a marvel, a flamboyant, Gothic, and grotesque mystery and suspense picture almost tailor made for me and what I hope to find in a horror film. Style complements and indeed functions as substance as master stylist and genre remix artist Gore Verbinski (The Ring, the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) madly submerges the audience in luxurious-ominous-unearthly imagery—a bathtub full of writhing eels! an H. G. Wells laboratory in a flooded catacomb!—while also telling a rich and symbolism-laden story which slowly, surely, eerily fuses corporate intrigue, medical paranoia, and the outright phantasmagorical.

A

Among recent films, it reminds me of Crimson Peak and The Witch, two other instant favorites of mine. Films where I could revel in every image, every sound, every mood.

Lol I knew you'd love it.

The thing is, the film doesn't really add up if it is "all a dream" and it adds up even much less if it isn't...

Its DNA has fairy-tale and nightmare elements in regard to tone and logic, but I do not believe much of it is strictly a dream. Beyond a few obviously hallucinatory moments. The corporate executives are there at the end in a desperate final attempt to find the CEO. And, on a thematic level, to show the main character escaping them as much as he is escaping the sanitarium. Is it believable the four of them came together during the merger-in-crisis and are driving up at this precise climactic moment? Maybe, maybe not. I am not sure it matters because it is effective on a cinematic and narrative level.

I will admit, it is rather amusing (within this film's universe) how it is accepted or even not noticed how many influential and/or wealthy people vanish after going to this one Swiss health spa. But the movie is a masterpiece and mind-blowing and beautiful, so I will roll with it.

It's too long and it's story structure needs a serious renovation, but damned if A Cure For Wellness hasn't burrowed into my brain like one of its own therapeutic eels. I haven't seen a movie in the mindfuck genre this original in ages. The setting, the art direction, and especially the casting give this film an authentically disturbing vibe that is hard to shake after leaving the theatre (nor can I get rid of that creepy earworm of a recurring musical theme). In retrospect, A Cure For Wellness doesn't seem so much a movie, as an unsettling dream I have just woken up from. *B+*

The payoff didn't sit well and it wasn't creepy enough for me to grade it higher. The acting/set decorations were good and the movie is gorgeous to look at but that's all the praise it gets. The town scenes were stupid and didn't get any attention and the finale was just hilarious.

4/10

I wanted to love this. But I mostly just appreciated it. The movie could not be more gorgeous looking. It is immaculate on a technical level with some jaw-droppingly gorgeous shots. But, while not exactly boring, the story wasn't all that interesting and it didn't go anywhere worthwhile. It's not a bad movie and I appreciate that it's different. I believe it's worth watching and it definitely did not deserve to bomb at the box office. It's a shame it had to happen to an original, R-Rated genre film. They probably won't give Gore Verbinski this kind of money to do one again and that's disappointing. Hopefully he won't be absent from the horror genre as long as last time, even if he'll probably have a more limited budget to work with. Not every horror film can be micro-budgeted. But with the failure of this and Crimson Peak it might be a while before another visionary filmmaker can get the funding to make something on this level.

I'm glad I at least did my part and got out and saw it on the big screen.


I'd give it a 7/10 (B-).

I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did as I'm a big fan of Gore Verbinski. And on a technical level this movie is perfect. It's gorgeous to look at from the first frame to the last, impeccably designed, and appropriately eerie and atmospheric throughout. But I thought the whole didn't add up to the sum of its parts, mostly due to a lackluster and poorly developed story that isn't as engaging as it should be. Also in the last twenty minutes the film abruptly changes its tone and, while this sequence is entertaining, I'm not necessarily sure if it felt earned. The performances were good across the board and there's plenty to admire here but I definitely felt it could have been a lot stronger. B-

This was pretty solid, but way too fucking long. Gore Verbinski's direction and the gorgeous visuals really elevate it, and while I never found it boring I have to admit I did find it to be meandering a bit too much in the middle portion. I was honestly kind of losing interest by then, but the way the story was unfolding was intriguing enough to keep my interest and the performances are also pretty solid, although there aren't any standouts. The last 20 minutes was weird as hell though, especially that ending. It all felt very out of tone with the rest of the movie.

Interesting commentary from Gore Verbinski about the Blu-Ray release of A Cure For Wellness.

Cool tidbit. Thank you for the link.