Movie Review: ‘STOKER’

Stoker is Chan-wook Park’s debut on American soil. Obviously for genre fans, you will know him as the director of the three films named the Vengeance Trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance). For those of you that are familiar with his work, the thing that you might find so fascinating is his convergence of beautiful imagery and violent content. That is no different in Stoker and I’m happy to say that Park’s first foray into American cinema continues his style without hindrance.

India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) is the daughter of Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) and Richard (Dermot Mulroney). She is obviously sheltered by her father and handled through her childhood in a fairy tale fashion. She keeps her shoes from every year she was born in shoe boxes and has unique attributes to her way of thinking. After her father, again an integral piece of her shelter from reality and possibly any real relationship with her mother Evelyn, is killed in a car accident, she is introduced to Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode). Charlie is dapper, charming and not like India’s father. India knows there is something off with Charlie or possibly some ulterior motive but she has self doubt on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Stoker is an amazingly executed film. It is disguised in a fairy tale shell yet has a very personal message about what defines a person in the relations with family or, to put it as macabre as possible, your blood. India is in stage where she is growing into a woman. This is the point where India will either fly or fall but a metamorphosis will happen, whether she wants it to or not. The characters of Uncle Charlie and India in Park’s film are a bit complex where as Evelyn is more or less a pawn in a much bigger game. That is not to say that her character is set dressing but is more so a mechanism that assists India and Charlie acquainted. Evelyn has her own reasoning in this but it is soon discovered that she is not the main reason why Charlie came to the estate. However, there is one character who really does seem out of sorts with the film and that is with Gwendolyn Stoker played by the wonderful Jacki Weaver. Weaver plays this role very quiet and subdued but it is really the only outside character that is actually family that we don’t really get to delve into. The character of Gwendolyn feels like Park is trying to pad out the time. Even though she acts as a major turning point for both Charlie and India, she feels like a throwaway character.

The photography in the film seems a bit muted but visually stunning and some of the framing compositions are stunning to look at. Granted, this is nothing new for fans of Mr. Park but hopefully newcomers that are just being introduced to him will realize what us genrehounds were going crazy for. Very few films left such an impression on me than what Stoker did, I believe I’m still under its spell and I am dying to see it again (of note, I saw this film a month in advance and have been clamoring for the opportunity to see it again).

Click here to read our Interview with Chan-wook Park

I eagerly wait for Park’s follow-up and I really hope that he stays or at least alternates his films between Korea and America. Again, for newcomers to Chan-wook Park, Stoker may feel like you are seeing the curiosities of early Tim Burton with darker subject matter but for fans of the director’s past work, it also seems like evolution into is filmography. I know it is also being compared to some as Hitchcockian, which it does feel like if Hitch was directing today, this may be a story he would take on, but I believe Park injects his own style and identity of storytelling that the term ‘Hitchcockian’ is almost a slight shade of insulting.

Stoker  is diabolical storytelling at its finest while being a dark fairy tale for the modern age.

STOKER is playing exclusively in St. Louis at Landmark’s Tivoli Theatre starting today!