To live for the weekend is a lifestyle and routine so many get unwittingly caught up in, and while Gore Verbinski’s latest endeavour A Cure For Wellness thrives in its supernaturalism, it’s grounded, persistently, by its commitment to the sheer mundanity of every day life, and it’s what makes this such an absorbing, contemporary horror.
Dane DeHaan plays Lockhart, an ambitious executive striving to get to the very top, by any means necessary, and when caught up in fraudulent activity, he can escape punishment by thrusting the company’s CEO into the limelight, and so is sent on a brief vacation to the Swiss Alps, to retrieve his boss from an elusive, idyllic wellness centre, run by the shady doctor Volmer (Jason Isaacs). The spa retreat specialises in treatment by water, though as Lockhart discovers, the methods are far from pure, and though initially anticipating a brief, day-long visit, following a car accident he is forced to prolong his stay, and his curiosity leads him down dark, dangerous avenues – which is where he meets Hannah (Mia Goth), who seems to be the only other person there under the age of 60.
From the very offset, Verbinski has created an indelible, visceral piece, that heightens the senses as the camera lingers over every little detail, like Lockhart scratching his arm, we feel every noise, and every ounce of pain the protagonist suffers, transpiring in a distinctly uneasy piece of cinema which is incredibly hard to sit through. This is a notion extenuated by the protagonist’s injury, with his leg in plaster it adds a vital sense of vulnerability to the role which is essential, while every time he has to run, or do anything physical, we feel every wince. The role itself is a rather flawed one, and unlikeable too, and DeHaan plays the part with a certain edge that always keeps the viewer at arm’s reach, never sure whether or not he’s someone we can invest in and root for.
This is where the film thrives too, as we spend large quantities of the experience trying to figure out if Lockhart is indeed going mad and suffering from side-effects of the treatment, as the doctors keep telling him, or whether there is actually a lot of fucked up things happening around him. It’s this mystery that maintains the viewer’s attentions and keeps us absorbed, as we seek the answer to the one, paramount question he keeps asking himself. Verbinski manages to ensure this character driven piece remains faithful to the genre it belongs to, adopting tropes of the archetypal horror to maximise the discomfort on show. In that regard it bears similarities to the likes of The Shining and Shutter Island, and comparisons to either of those films is hardly considered to be a bad thing.
A Cure For Wellness is released on February 24th
