A CURE FOR WELLNESS (2016)

Studio:       20th Century Fox
Director:    Gore Verbinski
Writer:       Justin Haythe, Gore Verbinski
Producer:  Arnon Milchan, Gore Verbinski, David Crockett
Stars:     Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth, Harry Groener, Celia Imrie, Adrian Schiller, Ivo Nandi, Tomas Norstrom, Ashok Mandanna, Lisa Banes, David Bishins, Carl Lumbly

Review Score:

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Summary:

A brash young executive uncovers a mysterious conspiracy when he is sent to retrieve his firm’s CEO from a secretive sanitarium.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Desperate for a fall guy amidst an SEC investigation that could jeopardize a major financial merger, Hank Green blackmails brash young executive Lockhart into retrieving their company’s troubled CEO Roland E. Pembroke from the remote Volmer Institute in the Swiss Alps. Having gone to the sanitarium for wellness treatment, Pembroke recently sent a letter expressing his intention to not return.

Lockhart arrives in Switzerland. While going up the mountain to the facility, Lockhart’s driver Enrico recounts the property’s history. Two centuries earlier, Baron von Reichmerl reportedly planned to impregnate his sister, as he believed doing so would keep his family bloodline pure. Incensed villagers burned the baroness alive before burning the baron’s castle to the ground.

Unable to see Pembroke because it is just past visiting hours, Lockhart speaks to Mr. Peterson. Peterson explains that the sanitarium was rebuilt over an aquifer believed to have rejuvenating qualities. Peterson instructs Lockhart to return after 7pm. Lockhart drinks a glass of water and leaves.

Lockhart has Enrico drive him back down the mountain to a hotel. Enrico hits a deer in the road, causing a violent crash.

Lockhart wakes back at the institute, where he meets sanitarium director Heinrich Volmer. Lockhart sees a cast on his right leg. Volmer explains that Lockhart broke his leg in the car crash and has been unconscious for three days.

After a strange vision, Lockhart finally finds Pembroke in the facility’s steam bath. Pembroke mentions the tragic suicide of Lockhart’s father Henry, which Lockhart witnessed as a boy. Lockhart seemingly sways Pembroke to return to New York with him after discussing their firm’s falling stock price.

Lockhart meets Victoria Watkins, a patient fascinated with puzzles and the property’s sordid history. Lockhart also meets a mysterious young woman named Hannah, and the two of them gradually develop an unusual bond.

Lockhart goes to collect Pembroke only to discover that the man is missing from his room. Lockhart confronts Volmer about his suspicions regarding the institute, but begins bleeding from his nose before falling unconscious.

Lockhart wakes in Volmer’s office. Lockhart agrees to allow Volmer to admit him into the sanitarium for treatment, as Lockhart now seems to suffer from the same illness as other patients. Lockhart steals Pembroke’s medical file from one of Volmer’s cabinet drawers.

Lockhart begins his treatment by being submerged in a water tank. Suddenly surrounded by eels, Lockhart desperately tries escaping the tank in a panic, but a naked nurse distracts the masturbating attendant. Lockhart seemingly drowns before the attendant and nurse pull him out.

Victoria tells Lockhart about her discovery that villagers actually burned down the castle because the baron was experimenting on peasants. Lockhart theorizes that the baron was searching for a cure for the baroness’ unknown illness.

Lockhart persuades Hannah to take him into the town beneath the mountain on her bicycle. Lockhart shows Pembroke’s file to local veterinarian Pieter. Pieter says Pembroke is suffering from dehydration, which seems impossible to Lockhart considering how much aquifer water is consumed by the patients. Pieter also reveals that the baroness wasn’t sick, but rather infertile.

Lockhart phones Hank Green in New York from the local pub. Lockhart learns Volmer never notified his firm about the car accident as Volmer claimed he did.

Lockhart confronts Hannah about the strange vitamin drops she and sanitarium staff members regularly take from small blue bottles. He also demands to know why she said no one ever leaves the sanitarium. This leads to a fight with a young man in the pub who had been dancing with Hannah. The fight is broken up when Volmer arrives to have Hannah and Lockhart returned to the sanitarium.

Lockhart has a nightmare of Hannah in a bathtub of eels. Lockhart also pulls out a rotting tooth, reminding him of the missing teeth he saw in Pembroke’s x-rays.

Lockhart sees more strange things as he explores the facility looking for Pembroke. Lockhart finds Victoria, who tells him that the baroness was pregnant when villagers murdered her. The fetus was cut out of her body and thrown in the aquifer, where it ultimately survived. Lockhart also finds a chamber of bodies submerged in water tanks, one of which includes Pembroke.

Volmer’s orderlies capture Lockhart. Lockhart is restrained to a chair and his front tooth is drilled out.

Lockhart escapes to Enrico’s car outside and has the driver take him into town. Lockhart reports his strange findings to the constable, but discovers local authorities are in league with Volmer when he notices a blue vial on the constable’s shelf.

Volmer comes to collect Lockhart. Lockhart rants about what is happening at the sanitarium while accusing Volmer of killing Pembroke. Lockhart is shocked when Pembroke enters the room at Volmer’s request. Pembroke tells Lockhart that he wishes to remain at the sanitarium.

Back at the institute, Lockhart hallucinates a vision of eels in his room’s toilet tank. Lockhart finally concludes that Volmer is using the aquifer’s water to manipulate patients while making them ill. Lockhart breaks off his cast to discover his leg is perfectly fine.

Lockhart explores the aquifer chamber underground while Hannah has her own strange experience in the water pool. Lockhart sees dehydrated bodies being dumped in the water before physically fighting with an orderly.

Lockhart tries escaping the institute with Hannah, but she refuses. Lockhart finds Volmer in the dining hall and exposes his conspiracy in front of the patients. However, the brainwashed patients stand up and swarm Lockhart.

Lockhart is confined in a metal pod next to other subjects. Volmer explains that the aquifer water is toxic to humans unless it is properly filtered. It is revealed that the blue vial drops are drained from the bodies of patients, as that is the method of distilling the life-giving essence from the water. Volmer forcibly inserts a tube down Lockhart’s throat. Aquifer water and small eels are funneled into his body.

Later, Hannah asks Lockhart about leaving the sanitarium. Now brainwashed, Lockhart explains he has no interest in leaving.

While Volmer oversees an elaborate ceremony attended by patients and staff, Lockhart explores the facility once again. Through a vintage photograph, Lockhart finally uncovers that Volmer is actually the centuries-old baron, having extended his life by using the filtered aquifer water. Hannah is revealed to be the fetus thrown into the reservoir when the baroness was murdered. Meanwhile, Volmer ties his daughter Hannah to a bed in preparation of impregnating her through rape.

Lockhart dumps gasoline throughout the building before confronting Volmer. Volmer peels the skin from his face, revealing a hideous deformity underneath. Lockhart sets Volmer and the room on fire. Lockhart then unties Hannah.

Volmer recovers and fights with Lockhart as the institute goes up in flames. Before Volmer can kill Lockhart, Hannah recovers and puts a shovel into her father’s head, killing him.

Lockhart and Hannah escape the fire, as do other patients. Lockhart and Hannah ride her bike down the mountain until they are unexpectedly struck by Enrico’s car, which is carrying Hank Green and two other executives from Lockhart’s firm. Lockhart refuses Green’s order to get in the car. Lockhart instead gets back on the bike to continue riding down the road with Hannah.

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Review:

Hotshot executive Lockhart’s rise up the ranks could be cut short now that his firm is in hot water with the SEC.  To keep a crucial merger on track, they need to find a fall guy fast.

Luckily, the company’s CEO is an ideal scapegoat.  Pembroke has been MIA since retreating to a mysterious medical clinic hidden in the Swiss Alps.  And a handwritten letter announcing his intention to never come back sends a sign he is out of his mind.

Lockhart’s task is simple.  Get to the remote Volmer Institute tout suite, collect Pembroke, and return to New York before the company’s stock sinks any lower.

Once inside the secluded resort, Lockhart learns leaving isn’t easy.  A mystery is afoot atop the mountain involving complacent patients, an enchanting young woman, a strange sanitarium director, and the building’s haunted history as a baron’s battleground with incensed villagers.  When a violent accident turns him into an unwitting patient, Lockhart realizes he must connect all the dots or risk remaining in the facility forever.

You’d be right to balk at the 146-minute duration of “A Cure for Wellness.”  It’s one thing to be long.  To also be snail speed slow on top turns the movie into a true test of patience.

Sometime after the success of “The Ring” and the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, which weren’t by any means brief, director Gore Verbinski was completely let off his leash and his runtimes haven’t been reined in since.  2013’s “The Lone Ranger” ran two and a half hours.  Verbinski’s last Pirates sequel, “At World’s End,” clocked in ten minutes shy of three hours.  Even his PG-rated animated effort “Rango” rang up at 107 minutes when comparable fare from Disney or Pixar commonly holds under 90.

“A Cure for Wellness” is another instance of kowtowing producers and editors being unable to wrangle Verbinski’s overindulgence in tedium.  The film gestates so gradually that the mind finds a new way to engage by keeping a mental inventory of unnecessary minutes piling up in the meantime.  Easily excisable shots include inserts of sunlight through treetops while bicycling down a mountain, patients playing languid rounds of croquet on the sanitarium lawn, or any one of innumerable scenes featuring Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) creeping on crutches down corridors with an expression of confused consternation pursing his brow.

Verbinski aims to echo the oppressive atmosphere slowly sapping Lockhart’s strength while under the sanitarium’s seductive spell.  But the audience is looking at the same pendulum pocket watch, and is lulled into a yawning trance in the process.

“A Cure for Wellness” compounds its disinterest problem by way of a predictable plot whose lack of urgency further smothers attempts to start a suspense fire.  The mystery is solvable before it really starts given the conspicuousness of a close-up on a water glass as Lockhart proceeds to chug its contents.  Clue #2 involves an unidentified man with a bandaged face in an old photograph, and the list of suspects for who he might be contains only one character’s name.  Once these two tidbits of info are out in the open, the rest of the story tells itself.

The movie loses miles because of its premise’s lack of novelty.  But it makes up a few inches via spectacular visual style that would be more impressive if the pace could keep sleepy eyes open enough to appreciate the effort.  A gruesome gutting of an injured animal and a battered deer limping to its death are two sequences not soon to leave the mind’s eye.  Verbinski and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli channel some of the style that made “The Ring” work so well.  Their collective eye for crafting creeps is what keeps the film’s waiting game from being a completely interminable bore.

A bold climax adds a touch of too little, too late adrenaline.  If “A Cure for Wellness” didn’t tastelessly employ its primary female lead, once as an awkward underage romantic prospect and then as a target of incestuous rape, there might be more of a mood to have fun with the ending’s absurd audaciousness.  What with a sudden reveal of grotesqueness from a villain to a random gasoline can readily available for burning down a building, there’s an “anything goes” attitude in play that could be guiltily entertaining if the mouth’s taste wasn’t so acidic.

“A Cure for Wellness” is akin to an undiscerning poor man’s “Shutter Island” as directed by an unbridled hand.  Truncation would go a long way toward distracting from the film’s formulaic slow burn thrills.  Until someone drums up the courage to rap a ruler across Verbinski’s knuckles, this could be the most cohesive chiller he is currently capable of cutting.

Review Score:  50

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