The Box

If a stranger left a box at your door, offering you a million dollars to push a button that results in the death of someone you don’t know, would you do it? Such is the moral dilemma faced by hard-up Norma Lewis (Cameron Diaz) and her husband Arthur (James Marsden) in Richard Kelly’s latest sci-fi creation, The Box. Set in 1976 the initial chilling offer, presented by the brilliantly enigmatic Frank Langella, combined with the simple premise looks promising. However what follows is a thought-provoking but unnecessarily convoluted progression. Kelly’s staple themes of alienation, sacrifice and a fondness for watery portals echo the great Donnie Darko, but here they try to do too much in an all too obvious manner and end up falling flat. The beautifully retro original score jars gratingly with occasional hammy performances and the potently dubious themes of original sin and hyper-intelligence get diluted in a story which sadly, despite having its heart in the right place, is far too self-conscious to be convincing.