The Box (2009 film)

The Box
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Richard Kelly
Written by	Screenplay: Richard Kelly Short story: Richard Matheson
Produced by	Richard Kelly Dan Lin Sean McKittrick
Starring	Cameron Diaz James Marsden Frank Langella
Cinematography	Steven Poster
Edited by	Sam Bauer
Music by	Win Butler Régine Chassagne Owen Pallett
Production companies	Radar Pictures Media Rights Capital
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	November 6, 2009
Running time	116 min.
Country	Template:FilmUS
Language	English
Budget	$25 million

The Box is a 2009 horror film based on the 1970 short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson, which was previously adapted into an episode of the 1980s incarnation of The Twilight Zone. The film is written and directed by Richard Kelly and stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as a couple who receive a box with a mysterious power. Production began in November 2007 and concluded in February 2008.

Plot

The film begins with a CIA internal memo being typed across the screen. It states that a man named Arlington Steward has recovered from severe burn wounds and is delivering units related to the Mars project.

The film then opens up in 1976 with Norma and Arthur Lewis awaking at 5:45 am as the doorbell rings. Norma goes downstairs and looks through the peephole seeing a black car drive off. Upon opening the door, she sees a package on her doorstep. Inside, she and her husband find a wooden box with a button protected by a glass dome, locked with a key, and a note, reading Mr. Steward will come at 5:00 pm.

Arthur goes to work at NASA, where he works in optics, and helped in designing the camera on the Viking Mars probe. He finds because he failed his psych exam, he has been rejected from the astronaut program despite acing his tests and glowing recommendations. Norma goes to her job as a teacher at an elite private school teaching literature, where they are discussing Sartre's vision of Hell. One of her students remarks on her limp, after which she shows her class her disfigured right foot, missing five toes. Later that day Norma returns home and confesses her fear of being thrown out on the street, because of the lack of income that they are receiving. That is when Arlington Steward appears at their door. Norma looks at the clock and realizes it is 5:00 pm.

Arlington offers them one million dollars if they press the button sealed in the dome. The catch is that someone they do not know will die. Norma and Arthur contemplate whether or not they would be able to cope with someone's death on their hands. After much discussion as to whether or not they should press the button, and some tinkering with the box (Arthur finds nothing inside it), Norma suddenly jerks forward and hits it.

Arlignton returns and presents Norma and Arthur with the million, without asking whether they pressed the button or not. He informs the couple that whoever receives the offer next, they will surely not know, implying that when the next people press the button, one of them, or their son, will be at risk. Arthur storms after Arlington and attempts to return the box, but Arlington drives off.

A 911 call is shown, where someone has been shot. The police enter the house and find a woman shot through the heart, and a little girl locked in the bathroom upstairs.

Arthur and Norma then attend a wedding rehearsal dinner, where Arthur is instructed to select a present from a table. A student of Norma's, the one who prompted her to reveal her disfigurement, holds up two fingers to Arthur. Arthur then sees a box much like the one left on their doorstep, with the button in it, and chooses that one. He and Norma find a poor quality picture of Arlington inside.

Norma's sister reveals to Arthur that the student Arthur saw was also the one who made fun of his wife's foot. Arthur sees and asks Norma's dad (who is a cop) to run the license plate number of Arlington's car. Norma receives a phone call (she is informed by a waiter whose nose begins to bleed as he's leading her to the phone). Arlington scolds her for allowing her husband to make contact with the police (Arlington somehow knows Arthur has spoken to Norma's father). Arthur angrily approaches the student from Norma's class and yells at him for making fun of Norma. He then storms out of the party, with Norma following him. As they start their car, they see "No Exit" (the title of the Sartre play they went to see earlier) written into the frost on their windshield.

When they get home, Arthur takes their babysitter, Dana, home. Dana had earlier gone down into the basement with their son Walter, to see Arthur's Mars collection. As they are driving, Dana acts strangely, telling Arthur to "look into the light" to solve her problems. Her nose begins to bleed and she passes out. Arthur attempts to wake her up and finds her drivers license, which shows her name is not Dana, but Sara, and she is from Boston. He reaches the motel, where "Dana" has been staying and she wakes up with a start. She tells Arthur it's not safe for him there, and to look in the mirror because that's the only place with the answer. She then hurries away. In the motel, every door she passes opens and a startled looking person stares her down. She reaches her room, where she has a large map and pictures of Arthur, Norma, and Walter.

At a supermarket, Norma is approached by a panicked woman who tells her to look up a certain call number in the library, and not to trust her husband, before passing out with a bloody nose. Arthur finds out that Arlington's license plate is registered to the NSA. He asks Norma's father if he can go with him to see the house where the shooting mentioned earlier took place. Once there, he finds pictures of Arlington and a picture of a Human Resources book, and a library call number.

Norma and Arthur both visit the library, separately. Norma avoids Arthur, as instructed by the woman in the supermarket. Norma find a film reel, which shows Arlington prior to his disfigurement. Arthur is followed by a crowd of startled looking people. He finds himself in a large hall filled with more scared looking people. He approaches a woman he learns is Arlington's wife, and she tells him to follow her. He is presented with three "gateways", made of hovering water. Two lead to eternal damnation, one to salvation. Remembering the student who held up two fingers, Arthur picks gate two. He enters the water and finds himself whirling through whiteness.

Norma is also led by two hollow looking women to Arlington. He asks her how she felt when she saw his disfigurement, and she says she felt love, because of her foot. Many years ago, her brother dropped a barbell on her foot and when she went to the doctor he put her in an x-ray and forgot about her, destroying the tissue in four of her toes. Arlington informs Norma that he was struck by lightning, and can now communicate with "those who control the lightning". Norma begins to cry and Arlington takes her hand.

Norma is suddenly laying on her bed, with Arthur suspended above her in the same hovering water he stepped into earlier. Norma moves away just before Arthur falls out of the water. The water falls too, going all the way down their stairs. When cleaning up, Walter demands to know what is going on. Norma and Arlington do not answer him.

More drama occurs and eventually, at the wedding of Norma's sister, their son Walter is kidnapped. Arthur is taken away by a gun-toting former employee of NASA. He is the same man who shot his wife, as earlier seen in the 911 call. He reveals to Arthur that he had to choose between his wife or his daughter. He shows Arthur the book seen earlier in the picture, and the water portals or "triptychs". They are then stopped by a man in a Santa Claus uniform, ringing a bell. As the two men are trying to figure out what is going on, they are hit by a large truck.

We then see Arthur emerge from a NASA warehouse, which has been surrounded by military. He is taken away and told by his NASA friend that everything that happens next will have great ramifications. Arthur and Norma return home and see Arlington in their kitchen. He informs them they now have two options. Their son, Walter, is now deaf and blind. They can either live on with their million dollars, and their disabled son, or Arthur can shoot Norma through the heart, at which point Walter's sight and hearing will be restored and the million will be placed in a high interest bank account for Walter.

We learned earlier in a warehouse full of startled people, when Arlington's minion questioned him, that Arlington's employers(presumably aliens)are testing the human race to see if they are worth keeping.

Arlington leaves, telling Norma and Arthur on his way out that their son is in the bathroom, locked upstairs. The two of them run upstairs and try to get him out, but cannot. They decide that they must make a choice, and Norma leads Arthur downstairs. Arthur then shoots Norma through the heart, and runs upstairs to find Walter. Walter is passed out on the floor, and does not respond, until the police arrive, having been called about the gunshot. Walter wakes up and calls out, as Arthur is lead out of his house. While this is happening, we see another couple make the decision to push the button. As Arthur leaves, we see Arlington arrive at the new couples house. Arthur's NASA friend informs him he and his son will be taken care of, as Arthur is escorted away by men in black uniforms, who put him into a black car before driving off. Arlington, waiting outside and seeing Walter looking out through the home's window, tips his hat to the boy, and the film ends.

Cast

• Cameron Diaz as Norma Lewis
• James Marsden as Arthur Lewis
• Frank Langella as Arlington Steward
• Gillian Jacobs as Dana Steward
• Sam Oz Stone as Walter Lewis
• Ryan Woodle as Lucas Carnes
• James Rebhorn as Norm Cahill
• Holmes Osborne as Dick Burns
• Andrew Levitas as black ops Carson
• Bill Thorpe as NASA administrator
• Allyssa Maurice as Suzanne Weller
• Sal Lizard as Santa
• Mattew C. Flynn as Young Deputy

Production

Director Richard Kelly wrote a script based on the 1970 short story "Button, Button" by author Richard Matheson, which was later turned into a Twilight Zone episode of the same name. The project had a budget of over $30 million provided by Media Rights Capital. Kelly described his intent for the film, "My hope is to make a film that is incredibly suspenseful and broadly commercial, while still retaining my artistic sensibility." Actress Cameron Diaz was cast in the lead role in June 2007. Most of the filming took place in the Boston, Massachusetts area, with scenes shot in downtown Boston, South Boston, Waltham, Ipswich, Winthrop, Milton, Medfield, Quincy, Kingston, and North Andover, as well as other localities. Some filming took place on the Milton Academy campus, and a large indoor set was built inside a former Lucent Technologies building in North Andover to recreate a NASA laboratory. The production crew also journeyed to NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., to shoot a number of scenes for the film. Richard Kelly's father had worked at NASA Langley in the 1970s and 80s. Many background extras were reused in different scenes, and people with period correct 60s and 70s cars were encouraged to participate. Actor Frank Langella was cast in October 2007, and production began on the film the following month. Prior to production, actor James Marsden was cast a lead role opposite Diaz. Production concluded by February 2008. It was announced in December 2008 that Win Butler, Regine Chassagne, and Owen Pallett of Canadian band Arcade Fire provided an original score for the film. Butler, Chassagne, and Pallett also advised Kelly during the editing process.

Release

The film was originally scheduled for release on October 30, 2009, but on July 31, 2009, it was announced the release date was to be delayed to November 6, 2009. The film was shown at the Lund International Fantastic Film Festival on September 17, two months prior to its US release

Reception

As of November 7, 2009 The Box has a certified "rotten" rating of 45% at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 67 ratings from critics. American film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars overall saying, "This movie kept me involved and intrigued, and for that I'm grateful."

External links

• Official website
• The Box at IMDb
• The Box at AllMovie