Stoker
2013100 minutes
rated R
by Scott Mendelson
Park Chan-Wook's Stoker is a delicious hybrid of its influences, which mix into an engaging fable of its own. Written by Wenworth Miller (yeah, the Prison Break guy), the picture doesn't reinvent any wheels but offers strong genre pleasures for those who like 'this kind of thing'. To say it's well-acted is almost redundant when your film is toplined by Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, and Nicole Kidman. Stoker is stylish, thoughtful and wears its influences on its sleeve while stilling spinning its own web. It is part Shadow of a Doubt, part Hamlet while finding new territory to explore in the somewhat well-worn road of 'a young girl's coming of age/sexual awakening'. It is a slow but ultimately hypnotic tale that is told with a certain tastefulness that makes its moments of misbehavior all the more jolting.
