The eels are obviously a symbol, as is the water, and the residents’ white clothing, and, as it turns out, lots of other things in the film. They keep popping up in places where people would be vulnerable, especially in the vicinity of their nether regions: toilets, ponds, places like that. But as that attendant is distracted by a female one (who unbuttons her top as he unzips his pants), the tank Lockhart is floating in fills, suddenly, with eels.Īctually, there are a lot of eels in this movie. The dour male attendant tells him to just relax as the tank fills with water. Stage 3: grossed-out disgustįinally agreeing to submit to the cure - whatever it may be - Lockhart finds himself in a sensory deprivation tank, connected to an oxygen tube. When Lockhart eventually insists on leaving, his car is involved in a mysterious accident on the way down the hill, and he’s checked into the spa to tend to his broken leg. Lockhart hoped to be in and out the door quickly, but Pembroke is not at all ready to go. Every patient drinks copious amounts of the local water, which the spa staff claims has nearly magical healing properties, and participates in various hydrotherapies for “the sickness.” They’re at the castle for “the cure.” (The nature of the cure is uncertain: “Purity Before Wellness,” a motto on a sign reads.) Dane DeHaan in A Cure for Wellness. Hannah has been there forever, left by her parents because of her vague “sickness,” to be cared for by the head doctor, Volmer ( Jason Isaacs), a handsome and soothing man. Everyone’s clothed in white garments all the time. (The attendants are all young and attractive.) All the old people were once high-powered executives at major corporations. Every patient is old, for starters - except an otherworldly young girl named Hannah ( Mia Goth). Something’s very weird about the place, of course, and it’s not just the anachronistic surroundings. Our curiosity teased, the film moves on to the second stage. So it’s a good wind-up for a mystery, and at this point, it seems a mystery is exactly what’s unfolding. It looks more like an asylum from a century ago than a cushy spa. The uncannily calm and sunny facility contrasts sharply with the dirty village down the hill. This setup - the young man traveling to a literal castle in Switzerland (actually filmed in Germany) to quickly find and bring home his boss - is obviously not headed for straightforward resolution, a fact underlined by all the strange things Lockhart hears and sees during his journey to the spa, and upon arrival. the occupants of the spa, which is housed in a castle once owned by a baron who was the subject of terrible rumors many centuries ago. On his way up the mountain, Lockhart, in talking to his driver, learns the unsurprising fact that the people in the town pretty much hate “the people on the hill,” a.k.a. They need Pembroke back to complete a merger.
He’s more or less blackmailed into traveling to Switzerland to locate the company’s CEO, Pembroke ( Harry Groener), who has disappeared to a spa in the Alps and gone incommunicado.
The action moves quickly from there: Shortly thereafter, ambitious young executive Lockhart ( Dane DeHaan) is called into a meeting with the board of the corporation he works for. Robot: A man who’s alone in a big office at night suddenly keels over and dies. The very first scene of A Cure for Wellness could have been ripped straight from Mr. So here is a guide to the five stages of watching A Cure for Wellness. A road map aids in navigating it with care. But it’s also a bewildering viewing experience, one best undertaken armed with a bit of knowledge regarding gothic horror antecedents and strong commitment to rattling your psyche and grossing you out. So in its own way, A Cure for Wellness is an accomplishment. It is a thoroughly distracting film, entertaining a lot of the time, and ambitious in the way studio movies rarely get to be.
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