I think I may be saying something very controversial here, but Edgar Allen Poe was a really great writer. Not a lot of people want to admit it, but it is true. He has the ability to make a story bone-chillingly creepy as well as quite funny. His stories have been the basis for countless films, usually starring Vincent Price, though lately the number is decreasing steadily. Some filmmakers out there are still struck by his work and are compelled to give their interpretation, which brings me to Stonehearst Asylum. The film is very loosely based on the short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” and has very good intentions of being a classically told Poe thriller, sporting a great cast and the look is very appropriate, but the script fails this film greatly, stretching its material very thin and always opting for the conventional route.
Jim Sturgess plays Edward Newgate, a young medical school graduate from Oxford looking to make a name for himself as an asylum doctor. He ventures to the titular Stonehearst Asylum, run by Dr. Lamb (Ben Kingsley), to start his career, where the mad people of the upper crust are sent. Once inside the asylum, he notices Dr. Lamb has very strange methods for treating his patients. He is very against drugs and would rather cure madness through giving a patient dignity and freedom rather than known treatments.
While working there, Newgate becomes enraptured by one of the patients named Eliza (Kate Beckinsale), who he believes is more sane than she has been led to believe (despite her hysteric fits). Over time, he finds out the asylum’s dirty little secret, which I will not spoil here but is fairly obvious, which makes his mission to get out with Eliza, who is devoted to the institution.
This cast deserves much better material. Along with Sturgess, Beckinsale, and Kingsley, David Thewlis, Michael Caine, and Brendan Gleeson are also in the film, along with Sophie Kennedy Clark (the best part of last year’s Philomena). That is a murderer’s row of talent given nothing to do. They all just play types we have seen a million and one times. Kingsley, Caine, and Thewlis, in particular, try to chew as much scenery as they can to make it interesting, which is admirable, but their characters are so thinly drawn none of it comes together.
There is sort of a rule in screenwriting that every scene must have a purpose. I totally agree with that. This film suffers in that it has multiple scenes all with the same purpose. Every scene between Sturgess and Beckinsale is him trying to convince her to run away with him. Every single one. We understand his goal in the first one. When there is no dimension or change in the goal, seeing the same scene in different locations over and over again is just asking for the film to be turned off. In a thriller, pacing is so important to the story, and repeating scenes kills it.
This is also a mystery/thriller, which means you can expect some twists and turns. The script thinks its twists are mind-shattering, but in reality, they are so easy to figure out that when the big reveal happens, you just nod your head and say, “Yes, and…” An audience member should never be seven steps ahead of the story, otherwise he or she is in for a long sit. When a thriller feels long, that is a major problem, and Stonehearst never stops having that problem.
Visually, I do not have many complaints about the film. The production design by Alain Bainée and the costumes by Thomas Oláh feel very authentic to the turn of the twentieth century. It is easy to tell director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) had a vision for a throwback tone to the film, and he tries his hardest to achieve that. He doesn’t resort to jump scares or anything like that to get under his audience’s skin. He merely wants to create an uneasy atmosphere, which was refreshing. I am about as far a fan of jump scares as you can get. They are cheap and easy jolts to the audience. They are not even scares. They are surprises. Anyway, I’m getting off topic.
Stonehearst Asylum had a lot going for it, which makes me writing this negative review so hard. I kept waiting for it to surprise me, to step out of the cliché, but it never managed to. By the final end twist, I was just rolling my eyes because it was so easy to figure out. I would like someone who knows how to write an intelligent, surprising Poe adaptation to reassemble this cast and production team to make a new movie. I would gladly watch it. This one happened to be an unfortunate misfire.
At 112 minutes, the dragging out of every single element of the story becomes too much to bear. You are much better off checking out any of the Roger Corman made Edgar Allen Poe films from American International Pictures. They are much creepier and much more fun. This one is just wasted potential.
