A Cure for Wellness (Film Review)

2017 20th Century Fox
Directed by: Gore Verbinski; Written by: Justin Haythe
Starring: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, and Mia Goth
MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 146 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 4/10

Gore Verbinski's A Cure for Wellness begins with incredible Lovecraftian imagery, skyscrapers jutting up through a thick green sky like ruins of ancient, unfathomably alien spires. The mood is set, and a master visualist is at work. Verbinski fills A Cure For Wellness with stunning images: a rushing train reflecting its ravishing mountain surroundings, a man slowly sinking through a pool full of eels, figures swimming behind the underground viewing window of a pool. Even a shot of a goldfish in a bowl is gawk-worthy. Too bad this imagery isn't at the service of a better film.
A Cure of for Wellness follows Dane DeHaan's absurdly dry protagonist, Lockhart, from a Wall Street boardroom to a strange wellness spa at the foot of the Swiss Alps. The career and profit-driven Lockhart works for one of those companies you mostly see only in movies, where someone just mentions we're in financial services, and you just have to go with it. It seems the company's CEO, Pembroke, has gone AWOL to this strange Alps clinic at just the moment the company has come under serious investigation. It's up to Lockhart, whose only character trait is "his dad committed suicide when he was a kid," to track Pembroke down and bring him back. You don't have to work for a fancy Wall Street firm to realize there's something fishy going on.
The spa is built on the ruins of some old baron's castle. Seems something strange was going on with the baron and his sister, and he was burned along with his castle. Lockhart has plenty of time to hear rumors of what once happened there because he's continually given the run-around by the spa's Dr. Volmer, and can't seem to meet up with Pembroke. Soon enough, he's involved in a deer-on-car accident, got a broken leg, and stuck as the spa's guest. Now he not only has to track down Pembroke, but deal with the spa's strange goings on, and also there's this mysterious girl, and...
It doesn't take long to piece together A Cure for Wellness' twisty plot. It's right in front of the viewer. That's not the major problem with A Cure for Wellness. The problem with A Cure for Wellness is that it isn't populated by anything resembling actual human behavior. This is a movie where a captive person reaches a phone, and not only are their first words not "I'm trappped! Please come rescue me!" but none of them are.
Of course, moments like that make you yell at the screen. However, I found myself yelling at even more minor indiscretions.Take for instance, a moment where Lockhart is having a beer with the mysterious female. DeHaan is already struggling a bit to be relatable here. He was great as the aloof villain in Chronicle, but he's tough to take in this film as a regular Joe just having a beer, holding his mug all strangely, while trying to convince his weird counterpart that having a beer at a bar is a regular part of life...especially when the actor hasn't been given a real character to work with. But even that isn't my issue with the scene.
My issue comes when Lockhart notices his female companion take a sip of some strange vitamin vial she's kept on her person, and asks to try it. When he drinks it, he immediately cringes and says it tastes disgusting. His beer sits in front of him untouched. "Take a sip of your beer!" I yelled. "Take a sip, dammit!" If I eat something I hate, like broccoli for instance, I immediately grab my beverage and try to wash away the taste. Everyone, when they try something they don't like, will immediately grab their drink and try to wash away the taste. That's what humans do.
Apparently, Pembroke likes being kidnapped and having a bad taste in his mouth. Perhaps this is a film for a particularly small subset of people.