Review Tuesday: 'The Box'

Today’s ‘Review Tuesday’. Darling Meg wrote some blog posts that began with ‘I’m sorry…but I cannot finish your book [1, 2, 3]. Well I’m sorry, director Richard Kelly and actors and crew of the 2009 film The Box [4, 5], but I couldn’t finish your movie. The film’s premise is intriguing: A box with a button on top is left on a married couple’s doorstep. They learn that if they ignore the button, nothing will happen. Though if they press the button, they’ll receive US$1M, but someone they don’t know will die. Obviously they press the button. And soon after, weird things start to happen. Stupid things. Like blood dripping from people’s noses. Sweetheart Vivienne told me she’d gone with darling Emily to see The Box in a cinema. And they both walked out well before it ended. As I’ve written [6], once I start something I almost always finish it. No matter what. But The Box was over the line. Beyond my tolerance. Plus there was a vastly superior alternative: Courtesy of darling Emily, Sweetheart Vivienne and I are well into the HBO TV series In Treatment [7]. It’s an Americanised version of an Israeli series about a psychotherapist and five of his patients. It’s absorbing, stimulating and entertaining. So instead of The Box nonsense, we watched episodes 16 and 17 of In Treatment. I’m sorry, Mr Kelly, but your film’s worth only one star.

P.S. In Treatment will be the topic of a future ‘Review Tuesday’ post. Stay tuned.

P.P.S. Happy birthday, darling Meg.