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Gothika

Movie Gothika Director Mathieu Kassovitz Cast Halle Berry, Penelope Cruz, Robert Downey Jr, Charles Dutton

By Subhash K Jha

In how many ways will Halle Berry scream in hospital corridors before she makes us scream? In her Oscar winning role on Monster�s Ball last year she was a workingclass widow battling poverty and prejudice. In the eagerly waited follow-up she yet again plays a victim of circumstances, this time trapped in an excruciating horror tale that unfolds in a mental asylum. Films about a woman protagonist in distress have a chequered history. There was Audrey Hepburn, blind and brilliant, being stalked by a criminal in Wait Until Dark. And just yesterday Sharon Stone ran for her life as she was chased by the mob in Gloria. Gothika is French director Mathieu Kassovitz�s first English-language film. To have Berry being directed by someone with a proven vision isn�t a joke. She�s an actress capable of crossing yawning emotional depths to reach decisive conclusions about an individual�s relations with God and Nature. Berry achieved that synthesis in superb shades of black and blue in Monster�s Ball. In that film when she told Billy Bob Thornton, "Make me happy" we wanted to put help Thornton. In Gothika when Berry runs scared we want to run out of the theatre. This superficial shallow and showy gothic horror tale allows her to do nothing more earthshattering than run barefeet across darkened eerie corridors. And she�s good at being hysterical. Regrettably the audience has nothing to get excited about. The screenwriters are so short on true inspiration they repeatedly resorts to cheap shock tactics to get the adrenaline pumping into the plot. But we aren�t really looking at the Berry�s character�s suffering as overnight, she turns from a doctor at a mental asylum to a patient. We�re too busy licking our own wounds. Her colleagues played by some accomplished actors, keep a straight face as colleague turns to inmate. The audience has a tough time coming to terms with the narration�s awkward and oily shifts in perceptions. The gothic ambience recreated through repeated evocation of thunder lightening and sound effects reiterates the film�s inherent poverty of ideas. To be reminded of the devil�s presence isn�t an indication of Biblical history being made. What�s being made in Gothika is a tawdrily chic formula-horror film which cashes in on Berry�s image of the hysterically inclined working-woman. As cars skid across neon lit evacuated highways, we wait for that one twist which would lend the supernatural a touch of the natural. Kassovitz moves forward on the thin ice of his plot with spiked rollerskates. No wonder it all caves in under the weight of its own self-importance. By the time Berry busts through the asylum in the bid to escape from an otherwordly captivity we share her anguish completely. Gothika is pretty much an agonizing horror tale which has us pining for escape. The cast has some interesting faces, chiefly Penelope Cruz as an asylum inmate with whom Berry bonds big time. But then their sisterly scenes together lack vitality and charm. Robert Downey Jr back after a while is happily typecast as a charming alcoholic flirt. When Berry is fastened to a surgeon�s table Downey Jr whispers, "I�m with you." Wish he could convince us with equal conviction. After the Oscar last year year for Halle Berry, this one is worthy of the razz-berry!