"The Box" - more complicated than its title

The Box is a thriller/horror film based on the 1970 short story Button, Button by Richard Matheson, notably redone as an episode of the 1985 series The Twilight Zone. It centers around Norma Lewis (Cameron Diaz, There's Something About Mary, The Mask, Being John Malkovich, What Happens in Vegas, My Sister's Keeper and the upcoming The Green Hornet) and her husband Arthur Lewis (James Marsden, X-Men films, Superman Returns, Hairspray, Enchanted, 27 Dresses), who live in Richmond, Virginia in 1976. Norma is a teacher, and Arthur works for NASA, but they pretty much live paycheck-to-paycheck, and Norma is worried about them losing their house. Then one day, a stranger named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella, Superman Returns, The Mask of Zorro, Masters of the Universe, Frost/Nixon) presents them with a button. Pressing the button will cause someone they don't know to die, but will reward them with one million dollars in cash so long as they don't tell anyone about this. Regardless of their choice, the button will be reprogrammed and the offer will be made to someone they don't know. Believing this to be a far fetched tale, they decide to press the button. They receive the money, but when they hear that someone was shot, Arthur does not trust Arlington and reports his license plate number to the police. Arlington then wreaks havoc on their lives via his "employees".

Sam Oz Stone also stars as Walter Lewis, the son of Norma and Arthur. Gillian Jacobs (Community) plays his babysitter Dana.

What I wrote is simply the basic premise of the story. The short story and the Twilight Zone episode derived from it did not have anything to do with "employees", or reporting of a license plate. In the original creations of this story, they press the button, get the money, and it ends with the button will be reprogrammed and sent to "someone else they don't know" and it ends with Norma and Arthur being paranoid that they will be next to die. The paranoia carries over into The Box, but this time they try to do something about it. The film is nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes long, directed by Kelly Richard, the director of Donnie Darko. Some say it is unnecessarily convoluted and takes a simple concept and blows it out of proportion, but I think the opposite. I think being convoluted in this case was necessary. In the original creations, they simply accepted the button with no questions asked. In The Box, when they received the button, Arlington mentioned that the deal is off if they report them to the police, which Arthur considered doing, and when he did later, Arlington made them pay for it. I also liked how it all came together in the end, and it wasn't predictable at all. I won't spoil that part, though.

The film scored a well-deserved PG-13 rating. Of course, the main factor is violence and scary stuff, of note being Arlington's face - half of his face has been so severely burnt you can see a portion of his teeth on one side. Norma also reveals that she dropped a barbell on her foot, and lost four of her toes. When Norma presses the button, the victim is seen on the news: we see a woman who was killed in a gunshot (a bit of blood) and her husband, and their daughter was locked in a bathroom. Several people Norma and Arthur come into contact with (not physical contact) have nosebleeds. Arthur is forced to choose three "pathways" (which seem to be him stepping into large rectangles of water), two of which will lead to eternal damnation (as will his refusal) and the other one will lead to freedom - he chooses right, but he appears over the bed in the water rectangle - the house is flooded. Norma and Arthur drive down the road to see a Santa Claus ringing a bell - they stop for him and are hit by a truck. Walter is locked in the bathroom, blind and deaf. Arlington offers Norma and Arthur one more chance - he says they can either leave things the way they are, or Arthur can shoot Norma in the heart (Norma wants to shoot herself, but Arlington says there are no negotiations), which will save Walter and the money they won will be transferred to a bank account to be available to him when he turns 18 (I won't tell you what they choose). There is heavy alcohol consumption, but it's all legal. I heard one s-word, but there's also name-calling in the beginning - Norma says goodbye to her son, whose friends call her "old". She says that she's only 35, and they say something like "You're a geezer to us!" As for sexual content, someone was called a "slut who marries for money", and at a party, Arthur chooses a present which turns out to be a photo. He and Norma don't want to show it to anyone, and some of the partygoes say "They must be private photos" or something like that. (I heard there was a sex scene that was removed in the theatrical cut so the film could receive a PG-13 rating, but I have no proof of that besides Wikipedia.)

Well, there you have it. If you can't sit through a 2 hour and 30 minute film, then don't see it. If you can, then it is probably for you, if you like convoluted adventures. I know I do.