Asylum

There is so much to admire about Asylum that I wish the movie came together better. The smoldering 50s sensuality is dead on, as are the colors used for clothing, building, etc. (although all the vehicles are a little too new). The acting is generally good all around, although a couple of moments may seem a bit forced.

But structurally, the film is a difficult sell. It seems to be a thriller, but isn't. The characters should be sympathetic. None are, and most become less so as the movie goes along. There is a formal symmetry to the proceedings, but I was left wondering if it served the material as well as some other approach might have.

Like his previous movie Young Adam, Mackenzie takes a literal approach to his adaptations - not be the best way, perhaps, to bring these types of difficult materials to the screen.

This very dark film, set in England in the lae 1950's is definitely not for children since it contains some very disturbing scenes and events. Though most of it is set in a mental hospital and deals with mental illness, it is not one of those films like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" or even "Angel Baby" that romanticizes and sentimentalizes the subject. So don't expect that. Rather it is a more realistic examination of the fine line that sometimes separates so-called normal people from the mad. But make no mistake, there is a line.

Stella Raphael(Natasha Richardson) arrives with her husband (Hugh Bonneville) and young son Charley at the hospital where he has accepted a live-in position. There are rumors that another psychiatrist, Peter Cleve(Sir Ian McKellen)may have been in line for the same position. Stella does not fit in with the other wives. She is younger, more smartly dressed(one of her hats looks for all the world like a UFO) and less traditional in every way. And the hospital culture is clearly one that expects women to keep a low profile and not make waves. Since their posh living quarters have a full-time servant, there is not a lot for her to do, but she does take up gardening, and Charley makes friends with Edgar(Marton Csokas, a trusted "pet patient" of Dr. Cleve). Stella is also drawn to the handsome and magnetic Edgar,a sculptor, despite being warned that he is there for killing his wife violently. They dance together at a staff-patient party, and soon after have a hurried coupling in the garden shed. After that, it is furtive, animalistic sex whenever and wherever they can. One day Edgar, against Stella's better judgment comes to her in her own bedroom, where he is seen by her mother-in-law, a disdainful woman who has clearly never liked her. After Edgar steals some cash from the dresser and seizes the opportunity to escape, things rapidly deteriorate in the Raphael home. There is also another shift. Stella's husband, who at first, seemed cold and repressive, almost deserving of being cuckolded, becomes more likable, and in one of the final scenes of the movie, shows that he has probably loved Stella after all. Edgar, on the other hand, reveals himself to be jealous and unpredictable at best, and at worst, violent durng a time when he and Stella attempt a beatnik life in London with another Australian artist friend of his. And what of the inscrutable Dr. Cleve? Does he really want to help patients or is he a power-hungry manipulator? One of the reasons I compared this film to Betty Blue is aprtly because of some of the disturbingly violent acts of characters, but also because it shows that survival instincts sometimes don't have anything to do with madness or sanity. Whatdoes not kill me does not necessarily make me stronger--sometimes it just makes me crazier and more self-destructive.

Martin Csokas is an actor I had never heard of before but would certainly like to see more of him.

Patrick McGrath's novel has been faithfully translated to the screen by Patrick Marber, and directed with great care by David Mackenzie. The film's basic idea is to what extent a woman can go when falling passionately in love with a mad man. Mr. Mackenzie seems to be in complete control, as he takes us for this somewhat erotic ride to show us what makes Stella lose her mind. If you haven't seen the film, maybe you should stop reading here.

The action takes place in the England of the fifties. The look of the film fits perfectly with the story thanks to that faded photography Jules Nuttgens created for the movie. The Raphael family arrives at an insane asylum where he has been hired for an important position. As such, Max must attend to everything because he looks as though he will inherit the director's job. Stella, his wife, is another story. She is bored with the surroundings and with her marriage. There is nothing between Max and Stella in a way of passion.

When Edgar, one of the inmates that is somewhat freer around the institution, is assigned to help restore the green house that belongs to the house the Raphaels occupy, he immediately develops an attraction toward Stella. This young woman is awakened into a sexual frenzy because the way that Edgar makes her feel, something that appears is lacking in her own marriage.

The problem is compounded when Peter Cleave, the ambitious doctor who appears to have been bypassed in favor of Max, realizes what's going on between the two lovers, but it's too late for Stella to react, or change ways, she has already been smitten by something that is more powerful than her own resolve to stay away from the mad Edgar. In a way, there's a hint of homosexuality, in that Cleave might also have feelings for the insane man, but being in control, he can rein his own impulses.

Mr. Mackenzie gets excellent acting from all the principals in the film, especially Natasha Richarson, who as Stella, is perfect for this role. Ian McEwen, the distinguished English actor, makes a great Petere Cleave. The surprise of "Asylum" proves to be Marton Csokas, who plays Edgar. Hugh Bonneville, as the cuckolded husband Max, is also quite effective. Judy Parfitt, Joss Ackland and Gus Lewis are seen in supporting roles.

Mr. Mackenzie has directed with great style as he seems to understand these characters well.

Anyone calling Natasha Richardson's Stella Rafael a "sexually bored housewife" is Not Paying Attention. What happens to her and to Marton Csokas' Edgar is a thunderbolt--a life changing charge that flashes through them both and changes them forever. They have much more in common with Heathcliff and Cathy (of "Wuthering Heights") than any other lovers I've seen on screen in the 21st century: consumed, obsessed to the point of (and beyond) madness in one another, not out of selfishness but out of a cosmic passion that takes them both utterly by surprise. Certainly, Edgar is a pathologically jealous man: mad, bad and dangerous to know. But madmen can fall in love, too, and he is taken entirely unawares by his passion for the icy, closed-off Stella. What seems on the surface to be a re-enactment of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" turns into the darkest of passion plays. Neither the writer nor the director succumbed to the temptation to make this a sentimental romance or a soap opera; these are dangerous people making dangerous choices, and sometimes dangerous, even tragic mistakes. Like Heathcliff and Cathy, there is no way this story is going to have a happy ending, or these people anything but a tortured denouement. But they are fascinating to watch while they do it.

Marton Csokas absolutely burns through the screen, all fire and smoky, mad eyes to counter Richardson's ice cool yet profoundly moved Stella. Together they heat up to the boiling point and spill over into an explosive combination of lust, love, and tragedy. Ian McKellan's smirking Peter the Freudian is wonderful as the manipulative puppet-master who is not really as clever as he thinks he is. Alas, Hugh Bonneville plays Stella's husband as a one-dimensional cartoon. It's only partly his fault, the character is written that way, but he brings neither subtlety nor nuance to the role. The movie might have been better if McKellan had been cast as the husband, and Bonneville as the shrink. Neither of these characters, however, can hold the screen against the incandescent Edgar and Stella, right up to a surprising and inevitable ending. Even if you condemn them for the disaster they create, you know why they create it. Excellent and disturbing. Highly recommended.

Very briefly, the story concerns Stella, the wife of a newly arrived deputy superintendent of a prison hospital for the criminally insane and the developing relationship that she forms with one of the trusted inmates. Nothing particularly original about a tale of doomed love - you inevitably suspect that the outcome will be disastrous, but the tale unfolds in a way that is unexpected and gripping. What makes Asylum stand out is the environment in which the tale is set and the quality of the production. I read the book on which the film is based some years ago. I often find that having read a book, a subsequent film can be a disappointment, possibly because the pictures you have formed in your mind vary from those that appear on screen. Asylum differed in this respect and I came away from the viewing haunted by what I had seen and greatly impressed with the absorbing nature of the production. For the benefit of any readers unfamiliar with the work of the author Patrick McGrath, his books often feature characters that are mentally ill. He knows the subject well as he grew up living in the grounds of Broadmoor, the English prison hospital for the criminally insane that features in this story. His father worked on the medical staff there. The film captures the claustrophobic and artificial environment of such a community and I refer to that which is experienced by the staff and their families rather than the patients. The rigid conformity and social constraints to which Stella is subject to are convincingly portrayed. The casting and acting I found pretty much faultless, not only from the big players such as Richardson and McKellen but the lesser known members of the cast excel also. Marton Csokas as Edgar, the subject of Stella's attention is particularly good. I was expecting a worthy but slightly dull 'quality' drama but I found the film unexpectedly absorbing, even though I was familiar with the story. The direction and photography should be praised also – unobtrusive but allowing the story to unfold at a swift pace so as to hold the viewers attention. Highly recommended.