Recently I watched The Box with James Marsden and Cameron Diaz. Both have been relegated to B list status on account of their age and lack of acting improvement. In Hollywood you either age well or act well, and occasionally both. Fortunately each actor has chosen the perfect role here. Robert Mattheson's short story "Button, Button" (22 pages short) has been massively overhauled and transformed into a megahit entitled The Box.
Cameron Diaz does not laugh forty times and jump up and down here, nor does she meladramatize a relationship. She acts serious which for her is really trying hard. James Marsden was a poor choice for Cyclops in X-Men and has been a jilted lover in several films. He performed so well and I do mean this in all honesty, that he has been overlooked. Sometimes actors play roles so well that they blend in rather than stand out. This is a good thing.
The original premise provided by Mattheson is one of temptation and betrayal. A husband and wife are visited by what appears to be a traveling salesman. In the film this role is played by Frank Langella whose face is scarred and almost torn apart on account of having been struck by lightning (an atrocity committed by extra-terrestrials from Mars). His teeth are showing as well as the striations of his facial muscles. The makeup job is first rate; it may even win an Oscar in that category. This salesman presents the couple with a box. There is one red button waiting to be pressed or untouched. In the short story the prize for pressing the button is $50,000.00 cash, in the film to make audiences pay more careful attention the amount is increased to $1,000,000.00. The consequence presented to the couple (in the film thousands of couples are offered the deal as an alien experiment to determine the viability of the human species) is someone somewhere in the world will die shortly after they press the button but that person will be unfamiliar or unknown to them. Seems like a nice bargain in the short story, but in the film it is a nightmare. In the tragic short story the wife presses the button in a moment of weakness because their bills are piling up. Her husband never comes home and it is revealed he attempted to commit insurance fraud by taking out a policy in another name unknown to the wife. As a consequence he died, technically as someone the wife did not know. Shocking and tragic yes, but nothing compared to the movie.
The Box is about a test of the human race. Thousands of couples are presented with a box. This leads to the discovery that Frank Langella is no longer human, when the lightning bolt hitting his face aliens began using his body as a vessel for their experiment. When Marsden (who is presented as one of the most generous and caring husbands imaginable) alerts the police he is ultimately presented with several choices. First he must go through a gateway which could either lead to salvation or to eternal damnation. We never truly find out which one. Because of his wife's decision to press the button they are put through the trials of hell. For some reason each button pressed in this movie is by a woman. Perhaps this is sexism or a statement about the modern desire for money. Many may not have noticed the Pulp Fiction reference. When Langella presented the money to the couple a few red dots of blood appear for a split second on screen.
When Marsden is put through a time warp slip stream he is confronted by Langella with both a compliment to his ability to love, and a choice that will haunt him and perhaps his species forever. He and Diaz are presented with their son being deafened and blinded temporarily. They may keep the money for the child in an interest bearing account until he turns 18. The price for his rejuvenation is for Marsden to shoot Diaz in the heart at point blank range guaranteeing she dies. I thought he would kill himself and redeem humanity but he shot his wife in cold blood and although it is not revealed of the aliens accept that act as our salvation or damnation, it sure seems gruesome and wrong in every way. This is a sick movie. Comparable films include Knowing and Pandorum.
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