Movie Review: A Cure for Wellness (2016)
Ref: A Cure for Wellness
I have to say hands down that this has got to my favorite horror movie of 2017 thus far. Very beautifully made and pretty well written, though there were some things that I would definitely change about some sections of the film, it really got me and pulled me in and I loved it very much.
[Note: I couldn’t write down any quotes whilst watching this time, but I really love a good amount of quotes from the letters, the mother, and from Lockhart himself]
Context:
Okay, so right off the bat, I loved Lockhart. Dane Dehaan does a phenomenal job at playing Lockhart in this film because of his overall attitude and sarcasm. I seriously fell for his character in here. He was a jerk but he was amazing and it made him actually more attractive as the movie went on. He was the kind of assertive young guy that, despite the circumstances, wouldn’t mind throwing a few spits back at people. I couldn’t help it but scream “A1 lockhart” throughout several parts of the movie because I thought he was a very strong character. Dane Dehaan does a really good job at playing snooty, rich dudes (reference: Amazing Spiderman 2).
Technicalities and Functioning:
I absolutely loved the camerawork in this film, I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I had to pause the movie at least 10 times to really capture the techniques brought into making this film. My love for it really starts at it’s usage of reflective photography, in several scenes the audience is given Lockhart, him looking at a specific place, AND the reflection of what he’s looking at. And I think that it’s such a very stylistic method of capturing the shot that adds to a layer of it’s fantasy and dreamlike atmosphere overall. One of my favorite shots included the beginning train reflection, absolutely beautiful. The colors were so vivid and as part of the story, we are given this psychological mind-fuck of the film’s usage of montage and flashback all mixed into one scene that it really helps to bring the audience to a point where they start to question everything. Going back to reflective photography, the element of water comes into play as well. The scene where Hannah and Lockhart first meet is beautifully created with a longshot of the water reflecting the beautiful mountains against the sky. The overall usage of color is relevant in this film because there’s this kind of sickly green color that follows all throughout the film giving it some more atmosphere and revealing to us more and more of the “sickness”.
Content:
Many commenters have said that this movie is strange and I do agree that it can get very weird and in many scenes it does get very vile (I’m not sure if that’s even the right word to use for this) but I think that these elements help to bring up the intention of the film, to make your skin crawl and your body cringe up from what is happening and what you think is happening.
I love movies like this, I love them a lot because they are psychologically suspenseful, you are waiting for what is happening next. I do say that if you are a big fan of jumpscares and things flying at your face and stuff, this movie doesn’t really have that as much but as the story builds on, you are able to feel an internal impact from it (in my opinion).
I think the film really allows its audience to question what’s going on, to not stand still and watch a screen blink in their faces, it allows the audience to really sit back and really really think about it all. The concept is very similar to Shutter Island and in many ways, it seems or sounds like a sort-of typical horror movie but I think that the way it was executed and the depth of the story itself allowed it be more unique and more different than the rest.
In many cases, I found myself thinking of the possible endings to the movie, taking some aspects and using them to foreshadow what is going to happen next and I’m very happy to say that this movie does a pretty good job at beating that, beating the standards and what people would really expect to happen. I think that’s the entire fun of it, to be able to watch a movie and get the twists and turns up your spine, that’s nice.
Cons and Nitpicking:
I didn’t really like how it ended; the ending wasn’t as satisfying for me as I’d like it to be. I felt like it ended very ambiguously, more questions asked than answered but then again that could be a more positive thing than negative. I wished that there was another twist or something more spectacular to happen at the end, it was just there and done. Like it all built up very smoothly, very nicely and then BAM, the movie is over. I would’ve changed that part of the movie, I thought maybe the possible ending would be the typical, he wakes up in bed and realizes that it was all a dream but he is still in that hospital to experience it all over again because taking the quote that his mother said about the ballerina “her eyes are closed because she is dreaming but she just doesn’t know it yet” would been the PERFECT excuse to end it in a more fucked-up way (implying that the way it actually ended is still fucked up).
Nonetheless, I love this movie a lot and would recommend anyone to watch this if you’re interested in very psychologically messed up, thriller-esque, something like a horror game type movie, then this one is perfect for you.
I definitely have to compare this to a good number of horror games that I’ve seen and ventured around in, many of the elements used in this film seem to be taken from them (which I LOVED so much). I also read about Dane Dehaan’s experience whilst shooting this film, that guy is amazing, here’s the link to the article:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/02/16/dane-dehaan-a-cure-for-wellness-torture/97949662/
I rate this movie, really 9.5/10 or even 9.9/10 (because I loved everything it’s just a small snib of a thing).
RE: Here's a deleted sequence from the film that I think should NOT have been deleted because it helps to give the story more structure (acknowledging that the story was somewhat hard to follow / confusing for a good bunch of viewers).
DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE.
I have to say hands down that this has got to my favorite horror movie of 2017 thus far. Very beautifully made and pretty well written, though there were some things that I would definitely change about some sections of the film, it really got me and pulled me in and I loved it very much.
[Note: I couldn’t write down any quotes whilst watching this time, but I really love a good amount of quotes from the letters, the mother, and from Lockhart himself]
Context:
Okay, so right off the bat, I loved Lockhart. Dane Dehaan does a phenomenal job at playing Lockhart in this film because of his overall attitude and sarcasm. I seriously fell for his character in here. He was a jerk but he was amazing and it made him actually more attractive as the movie went on. He was the kind of assertive young guy that, despite the circumstances, wouldn’t mind throwing a few spits back at people. I couldn’t help it but scream “A1 lockhart” throughout several parts of the movie because I thought he was a very strong character. Dane Dehaan does a really good job at playing snooty, rich dudes (reference: Amazing Spiderman 2).
Technicalities and Functioning:
I absolutely loved the camerawork in this film, I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I had to pause the movie at least 10 times to really capture the techniques brought into making this film. My love for it really starts at it’s usage of reflective photography, in several scenes the audience is given Lockhart, him looking at a specific place, AND the reflection of what he’s looking at. And I think that it’s such a very stylistic method of capturing the shot that adds to a layer of it’s fantasy and dreamlike atmosphere overall. One of my favorite shots included the beginning train reflection, absolutely beautiful. The colors were so vivid and as part of the story, we are given this psychological mind-fuck of the film’s usage of montage and flashback all mixed into one scene that it really helps to bring the audience to a point where they start to question everything. Going back to reflective photography, the element of water comes into play as well. The scene where Hannah and Lockhart first meet is beautifully created with a longshot of the water reflecting the beautiful mountains against the sky. The overall usage of color is relevant in this film because there’s this kind of sickly green color that follows all throughout the film giving it some more atmosphere and revealing to us more and more of the “sickness”.
Content:
Many commenters have said that this movie is strange and I do agree that it can get very weird and in many scenes it does get very vile (I’m not sure if that’s even the right word to use for this) but I think that these elements help to bring up the intention of the film, to make your skin crawl and your body cringe up from what is happening and what you think is happening.
I love movies like this, I love them a lot because they are psychologically suspenseful, you are waiting for what is happening next. I do say that if you are a big fan of jumpscares and things flying at your face and stuff, this movie doesn’t really have that as much but as the story builds on, you are able to feel an internal impact from it (in my opinion).
I think the film really allows its audience to question what’s going on, to not stand still and watch a screen blink in their faces, it allows the audience to really sit back and really really think about it all. The concept is very similar to Shutter Island and in many ways, it seems or sounds like a sort-of typical horror movie but I think that the way it was executed and the depth of the story itself allowed it be more unique and more different than the rest.
In many cases, I found myself thinking of the possible endings to the movie, taking some aspects and using them to foreshadow what is going to happen next and I’m very happy to say that this movie does a pretty good job at beating that, beating the standards and what people would really expect to happen. I think that’s the entire fun of it, to be able to watch a movie and get the twists and turns up your spine, that’s nice.
Cons and Nitpicking:
I didn’t really like how it ended; the ending wasn’t as satisfying for me as I’d like it to be. I felt like it ended very ambiguously, more questions asked than answered but then again that could be a more positive thing than negative. I wished that there was another twist or something more spectacular to happen at the end, it was just there and done. Like it all built up very smoothly, very nicely and then BAM, the movie is over. I would’ve changed that part of the movie, I thought maybe the possible ending would be the typical, he wakes up in bed and realizes that it was all a dream but he is still in that hospital to experience it all over again because taking the quote that his mother said about the ballerina “her eyes are closed because she is dreaming but she just doesn’t know it yet” would been the PERFECT excuse to end it in a more fucked-up way (implying that the way it actually ended is still fucked up).
Nonetheless, I love this movie a lot and would recommend anyone to watch this if you’re interested in very psychologically messed up, thriller-esque, something like a horror game type movie, then this one is perfect for you.
I definitely have to compare this to a good number of horror games that I’ve seen and ventured around in, many of the elements used in this film seem to be taken from them (which I LOVED so much). I also read about Dane Dehaan’s experience whilst shooting this film, that guy is amazing, here’s the link to the article:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/02/16/dane-dehaan-a-cure-for-wellness-torture/97949662/
I rate this movie, really 9.5/10 or even 9.9/10 (because I loved everything it’s just a small snib of a thing).
RE: Here's a deleted sequence from the film that I think should NOT have been deleted because it helps to give the story more structure (acknowledging that the story was somewhat hard to follow / confusing for a good bunch of viewers).
DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE.
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