Stoker

Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: March 1, 2013

8.3	USER SCORE Universal acclaim based on 502 Ratings

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MovieGoer14Jun 29, 2013

Stoker has a first rate art direction and an exquisite editing with an astonishing soundtrack and a great cast but a ridden of cliches and a third rate, tired and unoriginal plot that is pointless and dumb. This thriller is gruesome and it isStoker has a first rate art direction and an exquisite editing with an astonishing soundtrack and a great cast but a ridden of cliches and a third rate, tired and unoriginal plot that is pointless and dumb. This thriller is gruesome and it is not everyone's cup of tea, although it looks spellbinding and delightful, it is a dull, disturbing and an uneven experience in so many ways.… Expand

3 of 10 users found this helpful37

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ShiiraAug 13, 2013

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Prior to and superseding Old Boy, the penultimate film of Park Chan Wook's Vengeance Trilogy, incest is intimated(whereas incest becomes actualized in the 2003 Cannes Grand Prix winner), a forerunner to Stoker, his American major studio debut, where sexual tension between an uncle and niece is unequivocally stressed. At the outset of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, a mute brother and his dying sister hold each other like lovers as they look out toward the coastline, while over the soundtrack, the brother's letter is read over the radio airwaves, a letter that promises his beloved sibling, a kidney. During the convalescence, she allows Ryu to wipe down her arms and legs in the nude, save for a towel, a sponge bath that conveys the potential for transgressive intimacy. It's the ease and lack of self-consciousness about exposed skin from the pair which suggests a chummy history. In Lady Vengeance, incest is employed as metaphor, when Geum-ja, a parolee wrongly accused of child murder, has sex with a bakery co-worker who sees her as an "elder sister", a teenager at least fifteen years Geum-ja's junior. Incest, however, in Old Boy, rises above the subtext and begets two separate but interlocking interfamilial relationships that climaxes into the most tragic of tragi-comic endings. It's only natural that the South Korean filmmaker would choose to remake Shadow of a Doubt, the perviest of films in the Alfred Hitchc*ck ouevre. Not for nothing, in Stoker, does Evelyn, the mother, brag to Uncle Charlie, her brother-in-law, about the recently widowed woman's ability to speak perfect French, since Francois Truffaut(The Bride Wore Black) famously refashioned tropes to his own European art-house sensibilities, as does Wook Park(working from a script he didn't pen), who ferrets out the depravity that courses through the veins of Charlie and Young Charlie(visually linked by matching introductory shots of them lying down on beds) in Shadow of a Doubt, Our Town's shadow, the 1942 film with a similar double-barreled incest storyline as Old Boy. "Have you ever seen...yourself," India asks a boy, "...from an angle you don't get to see when you're in the mirror," while walking in the woods, just prior to his attack on her. Stepping out from behind the trees, Charlie rescues India, giving his niece a chance to flail away at her oversexed classmate, after he bonds his wrists and ankles together. Very obliquely, India's little speech recalls Old Boy, when Soo-ah allows Woo-jim, her brother, to molest the consenting schoolgirl in an empty classroom, going so far as taking out a compact mirror so she can get a better look at this familial lover giving her exposed breasts a tongue bath. She then tilts the mirror up to her smiling face. Echoing India's words, the smile says, "That's me. That's also me." Comparably, that's India in the bathroom, staring at herself, too, in the looking glass, before she enters the shower, where a different, more grisly recount of the boy's murder by Uncle Charlie's hands play out; a murder fantasy that serves as onanistic material for autoerotic sex under hot water. Both violence and taboo love turns India on. But what about Young Charlie? The filmmaker, in Stoker, makes more explicit the sexual longing and violent disposition already inherent in the uncle's namesake, whose "miracle" could be comparable to India's "longing to be rescued, to be completed," if not for the oppressive sexual climate of her times. Whereas India is an only child, mourning the sudden death of her father, Young Charlie has a full complement of parents and siblings. It's this stable family life, perhaps, that helps stave off her incubated unwholesome side which the uncle tries desperately, but fails to activate. Like Young Charlie, India is in simpatico with this long-lost uncle, sharing her counterpart's gift of telepathy, in which she hears Charlie's words of introduction from afar at the funeral. In Shadow of a Doubt, Young Charlie hums a few bars of the "Merry Widow Waltz", to the dismay of her uncle, who later attempts to romance his niece with an emerald ring. Earlier, through visual metaphor, Hitchc*ck shows how he wants to deflower Young Charlie. But what about the girl? Is she willing? It must be sexual attraction that prevents Young Charlie from turning the Merry Widow Murderer in? That much is made clear when, analogously, India doesn't report the discovery of their housekeeper in the family's pantry freezer. Back at the funeral party, India observes, "You look like my father," and because he's her uncle, she can safely realize her daddy fantasies without guilt. When Evelyn catches Charlie helping India slip into a pair of high heels, it confirms, perhaps, something she always suspected about her husband and daughter. Like Min-Sik(who beds his daughter), India, the "young girl", doesn't fully realize who the person she's attracted to really is.… Expand

1 of 7 users found this helpful16

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nutterjrJun 9, 2013

Stoker is a technically brilliant film, evident of the mastery of Chan-wook Park whose 'revenge trilogy' is truly unforgettable and 'Oldboy' in particular one of my favourite films of all time. Unfortunately though it never becomes anythingStoker is a technically brilliant film, evident of the mastery of Chan-wook Park whose 'revenge trilogy' is truly unforgettable and 'Oldboy' in particular one of my favourite films of all time. Unfortunately though it never becomes anything more than a technically brilliant film and even though there are scenes (like the one when Mia is brushing Nicole's hair) that are simply magnificent, the overall result is more muddled than unsettling.
Neither Goode managed to give me the chills, nor Kidman was engaging enough and the editing added to the confusion rather than to the suspense. But Wasikowska was magnetising in a atmospheric and poetic film that had many signs of greatness but in the end was not great enough.… Expand

1 of 7 users found this helpful16

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TVJerryMar 24, 2013

The movie starts at the funeral for Mr. Stoker. That leaves his introverted teenage daughter (Mia Wasikowska), his troubled wife (Nicole Kidman) and Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who shows up from obscurity. And the creepy, fatal gamesThe movie starts at the funeral for Mr. Stoker. That leaves his introverted teenage daughter (Mia Wasikowska), his troubled wife (Nicole Kidman) and Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who shows up from obscurity. And the creepy, fatal games begin. Who's killing and why? While some things about the direction and cinematography are compelling, the slow pacing and ultimately silly story keep it from having the socko effect that was desired. Interesting coincidence: Harmony Korine (director of "Spring Breakers," which opened here this weekend) has an almost invisible part in this film as the art teacher.
GAY ANGLE: Some handsome men, but no flesh and no fun.… Expand

0 of 8 users found this helpful08

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beingryanjudeSep 1, 2014

Chan-wook Park makes a curious art direction/stylish-heavy film which does quite engage any of our senses. Sure, the cast plays off of each other well; but it all feels a bit pointless.

0 of 4 users found this helpful04

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oliver1hJun 23, 2013

Not really good. Wants to be a stylish serial-killer, coming-to-age thriller with a twist, but fails to be more than a pretentious, and ultimately boring movie. The characters, their actions and motivations are underdeveloped and unrealistic.Not really good. Wants to be a stylish serial-killer, coming-to-age thriller with a twist, but fails to be more than a pretentious, and ultimately boring movie. The characters, their actions and motivations are underdeveloped and unrealistic. The acting is good, but the writing is lacking any kind of tension or realism. I felt nothing for the main protagonist/antagonist. The sound effect and the shot very beautiful, but nothing outstanding. Not recommended.… Expand

0 of 7 users found this helpful07

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BrianMcCriticJul 18, 2013

This movie just wasn't for me. I found while well made and well acted it suffered from a predictable and clichéd script in which you see most of the movie coming a mile away.

0 of 3 users found this helpful03

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AReviewsJun 25, 2013

Stoker is an exquisite film making, it sounds good, it looks great, but it lacks originality, which kind of disappoints in a movie that could be a one of a kind, lost opportunity, but let me deal with it, it is not an enjoyable experience, itStoker is an exquisite film making, it sounds good, it looks great, but it lacks originality, which kind of disappoints in a movie that could be a one of a kind, lost opportunity, but let me deal with it, it is not an enjoyable experience, it is dark and dull, but in a good way, although it lacks originality, which means it has a lot of cliches, it stands out as one great thriller with disturbing imagery, great acting and storytelling, the editing is perfect the psychological part in this movie is perfect, but still, it is not what I was hoping for, pity.… Expand

0 of 3 users found this helpful03

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Film13Sep 20, 2013

Very uneven some good scenes, but a lot of uninteresting sequences. Visually great. Length is ok. but there are much, much better thrillers out there. In the end all style, little substance.

0 of 6 users found this helpful06

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amheretojudgeOct 20, 2019

Mia is so absorbing without uttering any words that the screamers were bound to mourn alone in the corner.

Stoker The director Chan-wook Park's family drama looks like Hamlet-esque but behaves oddly nothing like it. So all the thinking getsMia is so absorbing without uttering any words that the screamers were bound to mourn alone in the corner.

Stoker

The director Chan-wook Park's family drama looks like Hamlet-esque but behaves oddly nothing like it. So all the thinking gets out of the window. And I mean thinking as in the morally questioning situation that the characters find themselves in. For instance, Hamlet stays true to the gruesome practicality by never giving you what you want. Which is, the character doesn't get what they want. And they want evidence. Desperately. Both the sides of the parties. Which then leads them into assumptions, theories, thought provoking plans and misery at the end of the unexpected result and the shocking citations. So you get emotional response at both the times, the celebration of the uncertainty and the insanity of the fact.

Stoker on the other hand doesn't give its character or us the room to ever express what's going on. That is not what it feeds on. It feeds on what is right in front of it. You have the crime, the murderer and not even a suspect, and the dead cold body. What it then does is take actions. Romanticizes the idea of the relationships driving this film, but not towards what's in front of it. The history is to be accounted to move forward.

And here we find these characters in loop. On that note it is depressing to see the hauntingly beautiful gothic display ruined to bits. Stoker asks a lot from the performance and the cast delivers. That is the only aspect of the film that delivers. Not even those remarkable scenarios like sharing a tune or cutting each other through a glance. The performance is responsible for this slow seduction. So I suppose it remains to be a personal touch. What you fall for and what not. No guilts. No regrets. No reaction. Just action.… Expand

0 of 5 users found this helpful05

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