| Product: |
Asylum (DVD) |
| Date: |
29/09/06 (178 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Erm...
Disadvantages: Most of the film really.
Imagine it’s the 1950s and you have gone to live at a remote mental institution with your husband and son. One of the inmates, known for his sick and brutal crime, as well as his present instability (we’re talking “psychotic with intense jealousy”, makes a pass at you. Do you a) remind yourself that he is a potentially violent and dangerous man, then get the hell out of there, or b) think that he’s actually quite tasty and proceed to have a full-blown affair with him? Hmm. I wonder… Well, the heroine of this film goes for the latter option, obviously.
This is the plot of Asylum, which was directed by David Mackenzie and came out in 2005. Set mostly in or around the claustrophobic world of a maximum security asylum outside London, the story focuses on Stella Raphael (played by Natasha Richardson) and her relationship with a mentally unstable patient, Edgar Stark (Marton Csokas). Although warned by Dr Cleave (Ian McKellen) to leave him alone, Stella embarks on a sordid affair, which is discovered – by her son, no less – and Stella has to deal with the consequences and make some choices about her future, with or without Edgar. That’s it in essence – I don’t want to give anything away, but of course there’s more to it (trust me: there’s more, this story has more useless twists and turns than Hampton Court Maze).
My main problem with the film is that every single character (with the possible exception of Stella’s son and the schoolteacher who has about 3 lines in the whole film) is unsympathetic and really quite unpleasant. I switched it off feeling utterly disappointed that I couldn’t give a toss about any of the characters – and as soon as you don’t care about the characters, you don’t care about the story. Stella’s husband (Hugh Bonneville) is boorish and sexist; Dr Cleave is pedantic, manipulative and infuriatingly kind to people who don’t deserve it; Stella herself is airbrained and intensely, all-consumingly selfish to the point where I wanted to smack her one; and Edgar…well, Edgar murdered and gruesomely mutilated his wife. Need I say more about him?
I just couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed with the logic of the story, too. So much of it seemed to hinge on people behaving in ways which they naturally wouldn’t – for example, Edgar savagely beats Stella, just for talking to another man. You’d think that once Stella is away from him, she’d be thankful and never want to see him again…but no, she’s out chasing him again as soon as she can. I did consider that this is the message of the film – that passion is more powerful than common sense – but it is clumsily executed and not particularly realistic. In fact, far from making Stella seem passionate and devoted, it makes her seem a bit of a silly tart, which I assume wasn’t the intended message!
Stella also appears to have no feelings whatsoever for her young son, who clearly loves her. She has no qualms about putting her violent and dangerous lover before her son; there is also an incident towards the end in which Stella actually sits and watches something horrible happen to her son without trying to do anything about it. If this isn’t unrealistic, it just shows her to be a horrible character and undermines all the sympathy we’re supposed to be feeling for her.
At 99 minutes, it’s not an extremely long film, but by God, did it drag on! The main problem is that the climax comes far too soon – about halfway through – and the rest of the film felt like a downward slope to, well, not very much at all. It felt as if the filmmakers were trying to pad out the second half with a series of annoyingly melodramatic events which weren’t particularly coherent and didn’t add much at all to the story. Again, I’m assuming the reason was to show the after-effects of such consuming passion, but it felt “bitty” and didn’t hang together. One minute Stella was in the grounds of the asylum. The next she was in London. The next she was re-united with her husband and son in Wales, of all places. The next she was chasing Edgar through some old ruins which had appeared from nowhere. All padding, and it all felt forced and unnecessary.
Just when you think the film couldn’t get any worse, the ending comes in all its predictable glory. Should you wish to watch it, I won’t tell you: I’ll just warn you that it’s not a happy ending. It sure is melodramatic, though – to call it a florid Greek tragedy-esque ending certainly wouldn’t be too harsh. And how predictable it is! I bet you’ll have guessed what will happen at least 3/4 of the way through. And will you CARE about what happens? I doubt it.
It’s a 15 because of the “strong sex, violence and language”. Well, the violence is mostly in the form of domestic abuse, which is sordid and saddening enough, so if you’d be particularly affected by that, I’d definitely steer clear. The language is occasional and not a lot more than a few F-words. And for anyone hoping for some hot sex, you’ll be disappointed. It’s neither extremely hard-core nor extremely sexy. I mean, staring at each other a couple of times doesn’t denote pure animal attraction, does it? Stella and Edgar stare at each other a bit, then manically and mechanically start having it off in the greenhouse. In my humble opinion, the sex itself is actually a turn-OFF rather than anything else – the passion just isn’t there and it’s all a bit bleak and sordid. Worst of all, there’s a nastiness to this film which doesn’t need to be there; a really unpleasant undertone which pervades the whole thing, including the sex and the supposed “passion”.
So what did I like about it? Not much, as it happens. I suppose the picture itself looked all right. It was shot in a slightly grainy, faded 1950s style, which I suppose gave an edge of authenticity, and the costumes/scenes were pretty good. Given the quality of the script (har, har) I also think the actors did probably the best job the could of bringing the rather flat and 2D characters to some kind of life. Marton Csokas is certainly intense, but his character just isn’t rounded enough for us to care; in the same way, Natasha Richardson is plausible, but Stella is so selfish and two-dimensional that it’s all a bit of a farce. Probably the best performance is McKellen’s; as the manipulative and weird doctor who specialises in “erotic crimes”, he brings a few ambiguities to the role, although by and large, the characters are banal and lacking in anything I’d call huge emotions or real motivations.
The DVD itself is well presented and is of good quality – the picture is nice and clear, and stays non-pixellated even when zoomed in. Sound quality is sharp, and it’s easy to navigate the title menu. However, the extra features are woeful – basically they consist of a few short interviews with the cast and director, and the cinema trailer. All I can say is, it’s a good thing I didn’t care enough about the film to want to know more!
So, all in all, a disappointing experience. Badly scripted, directed and produced, Asylum is a bit of a nightmare. A long, boring and twisty nightmare, that is – the kind where you switch scenes a lot and don’t really go anywhere, as well as none of it making sense or ultimately meaning anything. I’m just glad I borrowed it from the library instead of buying it!
THE BORING STUFF:
RRP £15.99, but you can get it on Amazon for about £7
99 minutes long (but feels like 1000 years)
English subtitles available
Summary: I want my 99 minutes back.
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