There is a moment, probably about 45 minutes into The Box, where you begin to wonder what the hell is going on. Up until this point director Richard Kelly (of Donnie Darko fame, and Southland Tales infamy) has his audience believing they are watching a morality play, but then the sci-fi kicks in and everything just gets weird. It is credit to Kelly that even with the twists and tangles of the plot, The Box is oddly enthralling.
The Box extends well past the scope of the original text, a short story by Richard Matheson called Button Button. Setting the action in 1976, Kelly has used the backdrop of the Viking Mission (first robotic research unit on Mars), with the NASA Langley facility playing a pivotal role in the film. Kelly has contextualised the film in a way that is familiar to him, setting it in Richmond, Virginia, where he grew up, and where his father worked as an engineer for NASA Langley. This lends the film an authenticity that enables the more fanciful elements of the script to still remain (clinging by its fingertips) suspenseful.
click here to read my full review at Trespass
