Film Review: "Method"

Method (2004)

Director:  Duncan Roy

Producers: Guy J. Louthan, Pierre Spengler
Writters: Duncan Roy, Katie L. Fetting

Stars: Elizabeth Hurley, Jeremy Sisto, Oliver Tobias

Music by: Barry Taylor
Release date: June 24, 2004

Running time: 93 min

Country: UK, USA, Switzerland, Romania

Synopsis: A well-known actress, a movie star Rebecca Fairbanks (Elizabeth Hurley), given the role of a 19th century serial killer Belle Gunness in a feature film based on real historical events, arrives to the filming location somewhere in Romania. Trying to assume this role and to understand the character, she starts living the life of Mrs. Gunness, but soon seems to have gone too far, for people around her die, and that was the beginning of her going insane.

Review:

To start with, I’d like to say that, while the film under study is a pure thriller and I don’t have anything against this genre, there’re much better examples that seemed much more intriguing and attractive to me. I like movies mostly based on psychological tension and mystery, employing some ancient legends and phantoms even, but without much blood. Here one can see a history of a maniac, first a 19^th-century one and then of our contemporary – a woman who learnt too much about different kinds of murders and who went too far in search of a clue to a serial killer’s motives and actions. Blood, luckily not real one, was literally gushing from the screen in the second part of the film, what created the sense of strong disgust.

The whole atmosphere of the film was really oppressive and gloomy, so that I could feel a kind of despair. At some moments this film reminded “Black Swan” to me, starring Nataly Portman, probably because the main heroine there also became a victim of her attempt to get deeper into the role she was just unable to keep up – perhaps because it wasn’t intended for it. Frankly speaking, I didn’t watch that film to the end, as I couldn’t bear it, and wanted to do the same with this one – only curiosity about how it all would end kept me from turning off the computer. But there also was an educational aspect in this film I can’t but mention: directly after watching the film I searched the Internet to find any information about Belle Gunness to see whether it was really possible that a woman could kill nearly 40 people, including her own children, and nobody finally found and arrested her. And I was badly astonished to learn that it was true. I can’t for the life of me see what motives such a monster could have; so it’s no wonder that Rebecca Fairbanks didn’t manage to.

My verdict will be the following: if you enjoy thrillers of this sort, having much to do with horror films, then the movie is for you; if you’re nervous and impressionable, then you should better choose something more peaceful.