A Cure for Wellness Summary & Review
Are we sick? Do we have some kind of illness inside of us? Even if we feel well, are we? Maybe there is something inside of us that doesn’t make its presence known on the surface. Maybe what we think is determination is something else, trying to tell us that we’re not well. This very topic is the subject of the new mystery film, A Cure for Wellness, from Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski.
A Cure for Wellness follows Mr. Lockhart (Dane DeHaan), a young financial executive who just got a major promotion at his company. Just as he begins his new job, his superiors send him on a mission to retrieve the company CEO from a spa in the Swiss Alps. He thinks it will be a simple task, until a car crash strands him at the facility. He meets the director, Dr. Heinreich Volmer (Jason Issacs), and fellow young patient Hannah (Mia Goth). Soon it becomes clear that something is wrong about the facility’s treatments, and Lockhart must discover the truth before he is consumed by it.
Most of this movie is pretty fantastic. The thing that is most impressive about it are the visuals. The effects, locations, production design, costume design, and cinematography were all amazing. This movie is absolutely beautiful to look at. I also really enjoyed the performances. I have always liked DeHaan and Issacs, and I think Mia Goth has great things coming for her as an actress. I thought her singing scenes was hauntingly beautiful. There are a lot of things about this movie that are really well done.
That being said, there were two things about this movie that really kept it from being great. The first thing was the length. As much as I wanted it to be perfect at two and a half hours, it did drag in a few places. The second was the twist ending. I’ll try not to spoil anything, but I thought it was am implausible twist. Throughout the whole movie, each element of the mystery was making me think we were going to reveal something really jaw-dropping, but we didn’t get that. It was a little disappointing.
A Cure for Wellness was an entertaining mystery, but just didn’t perfectly hold together in the end. The story couldn’t match the glorious technical aspects and performances. I really think Gore Verbinski had some great ideas, but his reach exceeded his grasp. I was hoping this movie would be great, and even though I was disappointed, I still thought it was a good movie.
