'The Box': Two hours too long

A stranger appears at your door. He gives you a box with a button inside. If you press the button, you receive a million dollars, but a person you don't know will die. You have 24 hours to decide whether you will push it. This is the main philosophical question of "Donnie Darko" director Richard Kelly's latest film, "The Box", a strange thriller in the vein of (and inspired by) a Twilight Zone episode. But while a television show runs for 22 minutes, "The Box" runs nearly two hours and therefore goes to strange and disappointing places. The film opens in Virginia in Christmas season 1976, where Cameron Diaz's Norma and James Marsden's Arthur play a middle-class couple living happily with their son. On one fateful day, though, the family hits financial trouble. Almost knowing the problems the family suddenly faces, Arlington James Howard (played by Frank Langella) arrives with the aforementioned button-containing box and a proposition for the couple. The choices for Norma and Arthur have repercussions of the oddest and most dire sort. Diaz, Marsden and Langella all approach their roles very well. Norma and Arthur are a likable, believable couple due to chemistry between the actors, and Langella plays the overseer of a deadly experiment well. Between his character's unsettling appearance and calm yet off putting manner, Langella exemplifies the mood that the film aims for. Unfortunately, Kelly's previous success as a cult film director seems to have gone to his head. At times, his direction of the film is fitting for the Twilight Zone vibe it attempts to reach, with zoom-ins, close-ups and other Hitchcockian methods used to create a tense atmosphere. Kelly is also successful when he goes to great lengths to ground the film in its time period, making a believable 1976 for the characters to live in. These shots are unfortunately, blananced out by odd, supposedly foreshadowing shots that drew laughter from the audience instead of invoking a desired reaction of dread. On top of these directorial missteps, the quality of the film's story deteriorates to a shell of its early self as it progresses toward the end. The further into the mystery behind the titular box the protagonists delve, the more ridiculous, confusing and painful each resulting twist and turn becomes. On top of everything else another philosophical question, obviously positioned to make the audience think while they walk out at the film's conclusion, makes its end frustrating instead of moving. "The Box" begins as a very tense, promising dramatic film, which makes its rapid deterioration all the more unfortunate. For those interested, it's a better idea to track down the original "Twilight Zone" episodes or simply re-watch "Donnie Darko."