What is it with Ben Kingsley and lunatic asylums? In Shutter Island he played the supervisor at one, but the film had a huge twist which most people guessed in five minutes. Here he plays the same part in pretty much the same film with the same twist the only difference is he has thickened the slices of ham he serves up his performances with. It’s like a bad British version of Shutter Island made by Hammer, but even that studio at its height would have made more of it than this feeble effort where’s Terence Fisher when you need him?
Set duting Christmas 1899, Sturgess is the kindly doctor studying the human mind, especially hysteria we get the second explanation of that word this week after The Falling, it comes from the Greek word for womb, hence the reason women are thought to suffer exclusively from it. He witnesses an example in the form of Beckinsale, a woman committed by her husband for suffering fits, violence and depression.
When she is sent to a remote Scottish asylum he follows her, and tries to get a job as a student doctor. The asylum is run by Kingsley, who shows him round, explaining his new methods of treatment which rather than involving shock treatment and cruelty, feature music and creative work. Beckinsale seems to be responding, playing beautiful piano pieces three times a day. She however does not respond to his kindness and soft voice, it seems he has his work cut out to win her shattered trust.
When Sturgess witnesses inmates having dinner with the doctors, and nurses behaving very strangely, he begins to suspect that all is not as it seems in this remote utopia.
Based on an Edgar Allen Poe story this could have been a spooky thriller, but the cheesy script and pretty awful performances reduce it to the level of a daft horror. Beckinsale and Sturgess take their parts seriously, she in particular is the best she has been for years, while all around them everyone else notches up the hamminess to 11.
David Thewlis, as the sadistic Oirish guard, is hard to take seriously, Michael Caine dials in his performance as usual but it’s Kingsley who is mainly to blame. Ever since he has become Sir Ben he has turned in clunker after clunker, and here his collection of facial ticks, shouting and stomping around in ludicrous uniforms while sucking on his pipe adds up to one of the most over-ripe performances of the year. Worse is the fact he has done it all before, and so recently are film-goers’ memories so short?
Overall verdict: Laughably poor attempt at some Freudian horror which is over-ripe and daft in equal measure. There are some good performances and set design in there somewhere amongst all the shouting and hamminess.
Reviewer: Mike Martin