525: A Cure for Wellness

[00:00:00] 231. Let's get to A Cure for Wellness, which came out in 2016, is directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Justin Haith, who also wrote The Lone Ranger for Verbinski, as well as Red Sparrow, Revolutionary Road, all of which I think are very underrated movies.

[00:00:23] It stars Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth, Ivo Nandi, not really a huge cast.

[00:00:35] And the synopsis is,

[00:00:37] An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious wellness center at a remote location in the Swiss Alps, but soon suspects that the spa's treatments are not what they seem.

[00:00:58] So, Gore Verbinski has always been, ever since I saw Pirates of the Caribbean, he did the first trilogy. Ever since then, I've been a huge fan of his.

[00:01:08] I think he is one of the most underappreciated directors in Hollywood. Rango is amazing. The Ring is great.

[00:01:18] He's just an ambitious, very auteur director that there aren't many like him at all. This movie is unlike anything that I've ever seen.

[00:01:32] It has gone down a little bit over the years. When I first saw it, it was like a five out of five.

[00:01:38] It blew my mind in terms of this being a big studio movie, big director, an original screenplay, not really any big action or anything to it, and it mainly being in the very supernatural horror genre.

[00:01:57] And I left with so many interesting thoughts and questions and a lot to digest.

[00:02:07] The overall concept of this guy going to this very hoity-toity institution, healthcare spa place out in the countryside in Austria, and it's very picturesque.

[00:02:21] Everything seems amazing and has the best intentions, but of course, as the synopsis says, it's not what it seems, and it's all about a society, a group of people, a country hiding its dark past and present the best version of itself.

[00:02:42] Even though a lot of very evil, bad things are happening under the surface.

[00:02:51] Dane DeHaan, this was really a big breakout for him in this period of time.

[00:02:57] He had Place Beyond the Pines, Amazing Spider-Man 2, this, and this was a big blockbuster run.

[00:03:07] I don't really, I don't dislike him.

[00:03:09] I think he's usually hit and miss.

[00:03:13] He's fairly good in this, but I feel like as a leading man, I don't know if it totally works.

[00:03:20] More often than not, it does in this, but I feel like he may not have been the absolute best choice.

[00:03:28] However, he does fit the mold of a very stuck-up, jerk businessman who just wants to get through all this but can't help but notice the strange things going on.

[00:03:42] Mia Goff, who, this was her breakout movie, she's gone on to be in a lot of horror films especially.

[00:03:48] I think she's amazing, such an underrated character actor, and I can't wait to see what she does in the years to come.

[00:03:55] I'm circling back around to its original story.

[00:04:01] For one, it's almost two and a half hours long, and there's a lot of, not a lot of plot in it, honestly.

[00:04:09] It's a lot of meandering through this world, a lot of things that theoretically could be cut, but I'm so glad that they didn't.

[00:04:20] While there are points that drag a little bit, and we'll get to the third act issues,

[00:04:28] there's so much backstory, so much history that's built within this world that you never really see nowadays with big studio movies

[00:04:36] that take the time, that have the green light to do pretty much whatever they want.

[00:04:44] I guess because of the Pirates of the Caribbean success, Gore Verbinski had a, at least for a while, he had a run where he could pretty much do whatever he wanted story-wise.

[00:04:56] Some specifics, though, it looks incredible.

[00:05:00] Gore Verbinski has an amazing eye.

[00:05:03] For example, the scene when Dane DeHaan sees Mia Goth walking around the fountain, even within the spa facility itself.

[00:05:17] Like, it's easy for that kind of location to be very repetitive and very sterile and just not visually compelling,

[00:05:23] but he definitely shows either the right location and or just his own talent.

[00:05:31] When Dane DeHaan is exploring the facility and he sees the water aerobics,

[00:05:38] then there's that misdirection of when he finds the CEO in the sauna, like way, way deep into the facility,

[00:05:47] and he gets lost somehow, like he's turning and turning and turning, then he can't find his way out.

[00:05:56] Also, one thing that Verbinski, to me, is very underrated for is horror.

[00:06:03] I mean, just look at the ring and all of the flashes of creepy, unsettling visuals that he injects into that.

[00:06:13] The one that will always stick with me ever since I first saw it is when things go wrong

[00:06:19] and Dane DeHaan is discovered to be trying to hack the system, you know, figure out what's going on.

[00:06:24] And they strap him down to this table, almost like an iron lung kind of thing,

[00:06:31] and they jam the feeding tube down his throat.

[00:06:35] Then he has to watch as they feed him baby eels, I think it is, and they go down the tube,

[00:06:42] and he just has to watch as they go into his stomach.

[00:06:45] Like that just shows you what a master Verbinski can be.

[00:06:50] And the water decontamination tank thing where he sits in the dark black sphere of water with the breathing tube as part of his treatment.

[00:07:06] Realistically, it's so stupid that anyone would actually get into something like that.

[00:07:11] I know it's a real thing, but obviously for this movie, it's very exaggerated in terms of the design.

[00:07:19] When he loses the breathing apparatus and he loses consciousness and the eels swarm him as he floats down to the bottom.

[00:07:31] And the whole distraction of the nurse coming in to the guy who's working at the desk and just starts stripping is a little like,

[00:07:40] okay, that's a little ridiculous, but whatever.

[00:07:44] Probably one of the only scenes that at this point with the amount of rewatches that I've had that drags is when Dane DeHaan and Mia Goth go into town,

[00:07:57] and there's that run-in with the skinheads and everything at the bar.

[00:08:04] It's not that it's bad.

[00:08:06] I just feel like it goes on a little long for what's discovered.

[00:08:12] I like the reveal of the butchered animals, I think it is, when they all have the eels within them.

[00:08:18] I think that's another good injection of disturbing imagery.

[00:08:25] Also, the thing that irks me more than any of the other flaws is, I don't know why,

[00:08:31] because it really seems beneath Verbinski to do something like this.

[00:08:36] Maybe they were strapped for cash or something, but when Dane DeHaan is looking in the mirror,

[00:08:45] and he's obviously wearing fake teeth,

[00:08:49] because I think he pulls one of his teeth out or something,

[00:08:52] but it's so obviously not DeHaan's actual set of teeth.

[00:08:59] Based on what we've seen for the first hour or so, and even in the last moment,

[00:09:05] the bulkiness of the prosthetics, how white they are, just takes me out of it immediately.

[00:09:11] I'm like, ugh, I don't know why you didn't just use special effects for that or found a better prosthetic.

[00:09:22] Nevertheless, though, when they get into the body horror of them drilling into his teeth and all that,

[00:09:28] I think that's good. I can buy that they're doing the best they can.

[00:09:32] It's more so just the one-off moments of looking at him close up.

[00:09:40] Some more eel imagery is towards the end,

[00:09:44] when Dane DeHaan goes into the water treatment facility or whatever it is,

[00:09:50] like the basement of everything,

[00:09:52] and suddenly the eels swarm the pools and all that.

[00:09:56] Like I said earlier about the third act issues,

[00:10:04] again, I appreciate the ambition,

[00:10:06] and I really would always take a flawed, crazy third act like this one has over a very safe, uninteresting one.

[00:10:15] However, with the amount of time that it spends doing all these different reveals

[00:10:20] with Jason Isaacs and Dane DeHaan trying to convince everybody that something is wrong

[00:10:26] and no one is listening to him,

[00:10:29] then there's the reveals of the, I think, if I'm not mistaken,

[00:10:33] the incest stuff with Mia Goth.

[00:10:39] There's a point when I'm just thinking,

[00:10:41] okay, I don't care that much about all this backstory.

[00:10:45] It's more so about the journey,

[00:10:48] plus the final moment with Dane DeHaan riding,

[00:10:54] I think, the bike down the long, winding road,

[00:10:57] and that really ridiculous smile is a very goofy last shot.

[00:11:05] Besides that, the score is really, really good,

[00:11:09] especially the, I guess, lullaby-esque song that Mia Goth hums at the beginning,

[00:11:17] and it's carried throughout in different ways.

[00:11:23] So in the end, I encourage everyone to watch it,

[00:11:26] no matter how you feel about it.

[00:11:28] I think it'll be an experience that you won't forget.

[00:11:33] So that is a heavy four out of five.