Review: ‘Stoker’

Written by the star of TV’s Prison Break and directed by the guy behind “Oldboy” is not a way I thought I would ever start any review ever, yet here it is, it has come to pass, this is indeed a thing, as “Stoker” is directed by the great Chan-wook Park, based on an original screenplay by Wentworth Miller (which itself is a loving homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, most notably his film “Shadow of a Doubt“). And you know what? It’s pretty damn good.

“Stoker” starts on the 18th birthday of India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska, Lawless, The Kids Are Alright), which happens to be the same day her father dies in some freak accident, leaving her to live in their big old secluded house with her emotionally-distant (and possibly pilled out) mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman, BMX Bandits). And on the day of their father’s funeral, a stranger enters their lives, Charles Stoker (Matthew Goode, Watchmen), an estranged Uncle who claims to have been abroad for many years doing various things, but who is now there to stay at the house for awhile in the wake of his brother’s sudden death.

And of course immediately there is something odd about Uncle Charlie (which is the name of the mysterious person in Hitchcock’s aforementioned “Shadow of a Doubt“), all the way down to his mysterious entrance into India and Evelyn’s lives and his increasingly strange behavior. All the way he ingratiates himself with the two of them, and actually comes across as trying to seduce them both. And wouldn’t you know it, they both seem receptive to his advances in different ways and for different reasons. And most creepily, Charlie does focus most of his energies on India, which is after all his niece.

Meanwhile, India has already been a loner and has had trouble relating to the other students at her school, and definitely doesn’t have any friends. Even when someone shows genuine interest in her, she literally runs away from them, unable to break out of her shell or her sheltered existence. But then Uncle Charlie comes around and breaks all that down, and India starts to awaken in a way that has eluded her for so long, and that’s her own sexual awakening.

While Uncle Charlie is the mysterious character and the source of much of the movie’s menace, this is India’s story and how she pretty quickly turns from a girl into a woman, and whether it be because of her own individual and unique personality or because of some bad family gene, her womanhood brings with it some wrath that maybe people should have seen coming.

Okay it’s not necessarily the deepest or most revealing character study, but much like Hitchock, Chan-wook Park works some magic in building tension and suspense throughout this story, and while the ultimate reveal of who Charlie really is doesn’t really match the great tension and mood that came before it, at least the story goes a little deeper, pushing past that reveal and really bringing things full circle quite nicely.

So the story isn’t the deepest, but it also never gets outright stupid (though it does flirt with stupidity at a particular point), and coupled with expert direction, “Stoker” makes for a pretty satisfying movie, rich in masterfully crafted aesthetics of all sorts from everyone involved.