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Richard Kelly is proving that he is probably a one hit wonder.

Hell is other people and so this movie. Opening the Fantastik Film Festival in Lund, Sweden, Richard Kelly proves once again that Donnie Darko was a fluke. Dull, poorly edited and predictable, The Box will come and go so quickly in theatres, you’ll wonder if it was ever released when you see it for rent on DVD.

The Box opens in Richmond, VA shortly before the Christmas of 1976. Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur Lewis (James Marsden) are a middle class couple living slightly beyond their means. One morning they are woken shortly before dawn to the sound of their doorbell. When Norma checks to see who it is, she sees a car drive off and a mysterious package on their doorstep. Taking it inside, Norma and Arthur proceed to open the box with their son. What they find is a small wooden box with a large button encased in a glass dome. There is a note that says Mr. Steward will arrive at 5 pm to explain. During the course of the day, Norma learns that she won’t get the employee discount to keep her son in the expensive private school where she works and Arthur failed the psych exam, which would have got him into astronaut training. Without the discount, they can’t afford to keep their son in the school and if Arthur would have gotten the raise, it wouldn’t be an issue. These moments seem like an after thought and really hold no bearing on the decision to push the button.

When Mr. Steward arrives he explains to Norma that if she pushes the button two things will happen, someone she doesn’t know somewhere in the world will die and she’ll get a million dollars tax free as long as she doesn’t question where the money comes from and she doesn’t tell anyone. The movie would be over pretty shortly if she didn’t push the button and then immediately question where the money came from and didn’t tell someone. After the button is pushed, it’s a short ride to crazy town as their world quickly falls apart and things go from good to inconceivably horrible.

It’s not clear if Richard Kelly is just a horrible storyteller, if he can’t handle the high concept ideas he presents or if he hires bad editors, but any of the three could be correct. The Box is filled with non-sequitur moments and an odd sense of randomness. One moment doesn’t lead to the next and chunks of the film feel missing as the story is strung together enough to get to the end but at times you’ll wonder how you got there. In one scene, Diaz and Marsden are dancing and having a good evening. The next cut has their son listlessly sitting bench when Marsden suddenly burst out of the room claiming to be sick. There is no mention of him feeling ill just seconds before. The film is filled with these moments. It’s a minor moment in the film but there are several major scenes that don’t make scene.

Hampering the film even more is the horrible performance by Cameron Diaz. Her attempts at being southern largely involve raising her eyebrows and looking sad. She attempts a southern accent, which is comical at times. Marsden isn’t very believable as a NASA scientist trying to become an astronaut. He doesn’t carry the authority to be believable and his actions come off more as the high school football coach. Thankfully Frank Langella carries much of the film.  His creepy character is menacing and frightening.

Much was said when Cameron Diaz supposedly spoiled the film at San Diego Comic Con. I won’t repeat it here, for those that want to remain spoiler free, but what she said didn’t spoil anything, the secret is revealed within about 20 minutes into the film. Overall, the film is very predictable and plays out exactly as you think it will. Based on the Richard Matheson short story “Button Button”, you get the feeling that The Box isn’t the best version of the story that could be told. All the pieces are there for a compelling story, they just don’t fit together properly.

Kelly’s script uses the themes of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit throughout the film. From showing a staged production to Arthur having to chose between damnation or salvation by entering a liquid box, Kelly has chosen to examine the concepts of the film through an existentialist play. Only instead of Hell being other people, Hell is living with your decisions. The character’s are forced from the world they know and made to deal with someone defining them. There are more layers but to delve deeper would giveaway too much of the plot. The existential themes are what keep this from becoming a throwaway film and help create some of the more interesting discussion points in the movie.

Richard Kelly is proving that he is probably a one hit wonder. After the fiasco of Southland Tales, The Box is a HUGE step up but is still far from the theatrical release of Donnie Darko. It’s doubtful that critics will embrace The Box and even more doubtful that movie goers will turn out to support it. What will be interesting is to see if Kelly’s next movie gets a theatrical release or goes direct to DVD.

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