The Cell (2000)

THE CELL (2000) / ***

Directed by Tarsem. Screenplay by Mark Protosevich. Starring Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vince Vaughn. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated AA by the MFCB. Reviewed on August 22nd, 2000.

By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN

Whatever the medium, surrealism is a difficult technique to pull off. Often, it comes across either as overly complicated, an indulgment in weirdness at the expense of a logical storyline, or as too mundane, taking perfectly evident plot points and tarting them up needlessly. The first type usually leaves its audience hopelessly confused (or, at best, requiring multiple screenings) while the second frequently just makes one wonder what all the fuss was about.

Although it makes a valiant effort, "The Cell" falls into this latter category. The film, by first-time director Tarsem Singh (pretentiously going only by his given name), tries to put a novel spin on the "bizarre serial killer" concept popularised by films like "Silence Of The Lambs" and "Se7en". Whereas those movies merely speculated about how the minds of their antagonists worked, "The Cell" literally takes us inside its villain's head. But while the visuals accompanying these scenes are stunning, the sequences are too elementary in their conception, lacking the shrewd symbolism which is the hallmark of great surrealism.

"The Cell" opens on a vast desert landscape, through which a woman in a feathery white dress, Catharine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), is riding on a black horse. We soon learn that all this is taking place inside the mind of a young coma patient. Catharine, a child psychologist, has had her consciousness inserted into the boy's mind using revolutionary new technology, and is trying, so far without success, to coax him into awakening.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) tracks down a serial killer named Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio). Stargher has murdered several women by trapping them in a sealed container which automatically fills with water after forty hours. He then bleaches their flesh to make them look like dolls before dumping their bodies. Just before his arrest, Stargher experiences a massive seizure, plunging him into a coma from which he will likely never emerge. Unfortunately, he has recently kidnapped a woman, and has left no clues as to where she is being kept. With less than two days to rescue her before she drowns in Stargher's contraption, Novak turns to Catharine Deane, who reluctantly agrees to go inside Carl's subconscious.

It is these scenes, set inside the mind of the killer, that form "The Cell"'s centerpiece, giving Tarsem a tremendous opportunity to strut his stuff. Having cut his teeth on such visually memorable music videos as REM's "Losing My Religion", Tarsem brings a number of striking touches to "The Cell". Consider, for example, a disturbing scene in which Catharine walks through a gallery of Stargher's previous victims, all in various stages of becoming doll-like and mechanically acting out vaguely obscene movements. Also very impressive is Stargher's representation of his evil side, a demonic-looking figure brilliantly realised by costume designers Eiko Ishioka and April Napier. Tarsem does a fine job of filming D'Onofrio in these scenes in a manner that gives him a sensation of absolute enormity.

But one of the joys of surrealistic works is in deducing the meaning behind the symbols. But Tarsem does not make much use of symbolism in "The Cell". Though he does paint an eccentric and original mental terrain, Tarsem mainly depicts Stargher's mindscape as simply a collage of moments from his past. This makes the whole thing at times feel like nothing more than a heavy-handed way to insert flashbacks into the narrative. Most things in Carl's subconscious are exactly what they seem to be, and while there is enough of the bizarre and the fantastic to impress the eye, I found myself left with a slight feeling of hollowness.

Indeed, I was sometimes more intrigued by the boy Catharine is treating than I was by the Stargher storyline itself. Here we do get flashes of the sort of clever associations I was anticipating (inside his mind, the boy lives in fear of a creature Catharine later reveals is derived from Mother Goose), and it is unfortunate that these sequences were used only as bookends for the main action. They had the potential to form the cornerstone of a very intriguing movie in their own right.

The two main protagonists, Lopez and Vaughn, give passable performances. Lopez's Catharine seems rather weak and half-formed throughout. This may have been intentional, to contrast the character with the way she behaves after falling under Stargher's thrall, but these sequences are too brief to support the decision. Vaughn, meanwhile, plays Peter with little variation on the standard FBI stereotype. Intriguing hints that he may have gone through much the same childhood experiences as Stargher are left disappointingly underdeveloped.

D'Onofrio, on the other hand, ably handles the variety of material he is given, playing everything from a simpering child-man to an imposing beast. The biggest problem is that Stargher just is not a particularly memorable villain. Although scriptwriter Mark Protosevich gives him some interesting characteristics (he has hooks embedded in his back so that he can hover from ropes over his victims, for example), these just seem like so much window dressing. Stargher's own personality is pushed to the background for much of the film.

"The Cell" also goes a little overboard in trying to make Stargher seem like less of a monster, passing the blame on to his abusive father. Although this does provide some insight into Carl's motivations, it also feels like something of a cop-out. And surely, if we are expected to excuse (or, at least, understand) Stargher's behaviour on this basis, then mightn't his father be worthy of the same consideration? Isn't it a little too pat to just set him up as the ultimate villain?

It is unfortunate that "The Cell" does not tackle such issues, nor take better advantage of its great premise. Instead, it ends up as essentially just another serial killer movie. It can be recommended on the basis of its visuals and sheer entertainment value, but it falls short of being a great movie, unfortunately settling for just being pretty good.

Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/TheCell.html

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