Gorey Storey.
There are some films in which style triumphs over content, Stoker is a film in which style overpowers content, hurls it to the ground then chokes the life out of it. Directed by Park Chan-wook, the South Korean who did the entertaining Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance), Stoker is so full of mysterious symbols, portentous glances, and cinematic and literary references that when you find out what it’s all about, you think, “That’s it??? That’s what all the fuss is for?”
A girl’s father dies. A mysterious uncle shows up (named Uncle Charlie, so everyone who’s seen Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt knows what we’re dealing with). The girl, her mother and Uncle Charlie begin to form a romantic triangle. So far, so good. But then we find out the underlying secret. We’ve seen it before. And the theme, involving nature and nurture and freedom and inheritance and so on, has been done much better and deeper on Dexter.
Well, it’s not boring, just thin. And all the acting’s good — Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode. And if the style is too much, at least it really is stylish. The whole picture looks like an Edward Gorey sketch. All in all, I’d say you might enjoy the pretty pictures, but don’t expect too much from the story itself.
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