Bloody hell that was a good un'! Talk about twisted and black, a really sinister little beast of a film, this one. It looked stunning, the performances are superb, as is the direction and the editing is masterful, particularly some of the scene transitions! There's a cut in the film which goes for a girl having her hair brushed to a scene of tall grass blowing in the wind in one move, which made me gasp. Beautiful.
This film is filled with such lovely, and elegant moments, there's a fantastically sexually charged scene played out by two of the characters while dueting on the piano which left me in awe of the skill of its Korean director, Chan Wook-Park - the legendary film maker behind Old Boy, Lady Vengeance, Sympathy of Mr. Vengeance and Thirst. This is his first western film and fears he would end up neutered like John Woo remain unrealised.
The story, in a nutter shell. Following the death of her father, Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska, has to cope the arrival of neither-to-unkwown uncle, the Watchman's Mathew Goode who takes a not-too-healthy interest in his 18 year-old niece, while her emotionally damaged mother, BMX Bandit's, Nicole Kidman in turn becomes infatuated with him. But as he plays each off against the other, the true purpose behind his masterful manipulations begins to become horrifically clear.
The film builds and builds and is never less than utterly engaging. The ending is inevitable but that isn't really bad since the journey getting there was so deranged.
This is a film you'll find yourself thinking about, over and over, especially the next time you take a shower.
Catch it if you can.
9/10
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