If you adjust the color grading for A Cure For Wellness and substitute Dean Dehaan for Leonardo DiCaprio, you get a least subtle version of Martin Scorsese’s 2010 thriller Shutter Island that’s more enriched with the supernatural rather than the psychological.
Confidence that Verbinski could turn a profit with this highly subjective immersion into surrealism must not have been the motivation for releasing such a risky film with no real commercial value. Verbinski is truthfully the only viable asset to this movie and that’s not to belittle the cast, but his Hollywood cred does go a long way. The only benefit the studio had to make this film was to show loyalty to Verbinski, a director whose last film was the domestic Disney flop Lone Ranger, and hope that one day he will direct a high-profile film of their choice.
Bravo if that’s the case. A Cure for Wellness can, if anything, be written off as a concession prize to a lopsided business deal.
A Cure For Wellness deserves to be judged on its technical merits. There are some beautifully crafted scenes in this movie; many of which were pinned and hemmed to showcase a visual aesthetic tailored-made by Verbinski and the supernatural science of the plot narrative. The creative freedom given to the director is evident in both the location choices and production design; elements essential to the look of the tale which often does little to benefit the story.
Scene Pick
During a hallucination, Lockheart (Dehaan) envisions Hannah (Mia Goth) submerged in an ornate tube filled with eels. This visual was so striking as Hannah transforms her solemn shyness into an object of longing and destitution with a glance, a single glance for Lockheart who has yet to acknowledge how much he is drawn to her. 