A Cure For Wellness- Review

So yesterday I went to the premiere of A Cure For Wellness. This movie features the talents of Dane Dehaan, Mia Goth and Jason Isaacs (just to name a few of the many amazing and talented actors/ actresses). Since watching the trailer 2 weeks ago, I was so hyped and talked non-stop about wanting to go and see this. I wasn't disappointed.

Without giving too much away, this film is about a man working for a high-end business sent to the Swiss Alps in search of his AWOL colleague and ends up finding himself in the middle of some cryptic and mysterious happenings at a medical institution. This movie has a limited soundtrack with mainly instrumentals and eerie female vocals that make you feel as though you are trapped in a sick dream but cannot wake up from it.

The performances: When I saw that Dane Dahaan was starring in this movie, I almost knew exactly what kind of character he would play. Typically, like the role of Harry Osborne, Dane is able to play the sarcastic, smart-assed bastard child who always carries some kind of a chip on his shoulder. In this movie, Dane does exactly that which made it a little predictable here and there for me. In saying that though, I was able to believe his character and feel that he was still successful in his role.

Mia Goth is absolutely beautiful and particularly haunting in this role. You can’t describe her character too much without spoiling the movie but what I can say is that she was able to carry herself throughout the entire movie with verbal and non-verbal dramatization. She appears almost breakable until we learn more about her and the significance she has in this story.

In all honesty, I had no idea that Jason Isaacs was in this movie, nor was I able to put a name to a face until my friend pointed out that he had played Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise. His character was mysterious, compelling and also very frightening at some points. If I were to encounter this man in a movie as a character, I would have already turned the water brown. At some parts I found his characterization to be a little dry but he always managed to pick himself up again and scare me some more.

The Cons: Like any movie, there are bound to be some faults at hand. In my opinion this movie was brilliantly shot and juggled the right amounts of suspense and the calm before a storm BUT the main issue I have is the running time and how effectively it was used. This movie runs for a total of 146 minutes, which should be enough to explore backstories, problems, climaxes and solutions but it all depends on the way you can project these. However, I found that many things were not disclosed and left the cinema a tad confused. Just a fair warning though, most of this movie will leave you thinking “hey, that doesn’t make sense” but sometimes that can be a truly wonderful thing because it isn’t always supposed to make sense and perhaps this is what the director had in mind. Still, I wanted to know more and was not granted that luxury which was pretty disappointing.

I just want to say that the cinematography was beautiful and I think I may have caught the travel bug just from looking at how pretty Switzerland really is (bank account will reject this idea). Bojan Bazelli was the cinematographer and I am so proud of his work here, he did a very intricate and delicate job. Kudos to the man!

I am very pleased to have spent a whopping $13 on this, thanks to my Student Edge discount and would encourage anyone and everyone to watch this movie. To see some originality was refreshing and admirable and I was hooked the entire time. This is a one of a kind psychological horror/ thriller (which I love by the way) and I can’t believe it was a box office bomb…excuse me people, clean up your act.

Score: A well deserved 8.5/ 10 from me

Rating: MA15+ themes and violence