stoker tells the story of a girl, India stoker (Mia wasikowska)who just lost her father (dermout mulroney) in sort of a mysterious way. suddenly, an uncle, charlie stoker (Matthew Goode), whom she has never heard of before, appears and somehow convinces her mother, Evelyn stoker (Nicole kidman) to stay in the house for some time. his stay brings about a string of mysterious occurrences in the long run.
when i first watched the trailer of this movie, i thought, 'wow. quite thrilling. wentworth miller is quite the writer. cant wait'. but, the movie as it turns out, ended up being bland. i even thought that other critics comparing this movie to the Hitchcock genre was unnecessary. it started very slow and ended even slower. one would think that from the trailer, the movie would contain enough spine chilling moments.
as for the acting, i was thoroughly disappointed with Matthew Goode. he didn't even convincing as the mysterious and villainous uncle charlie. his gazes that i think were suppose to be probing and spellbinding were just eye itching and i just grew tired of them.
Nicole kidman was the only one who managed to give an okay performance, especially in the last scene. even Jacki weaver's brief cameo as aunty Gwendolyn 'gin' stoker, was boring and frankly made the character seem even unnecessary.
wentworth miller's screenplay, as for me, had a lot of spaces that just made the whole thing look half done. there weren't enough 'oh my God' moments to make his scripts comparable to Hitchcock's.
all in all, stoker was a tiring thriller that just made me wonder 'what was nicole kidman thinking in choosing this script?'. although i applaud her desire to be versatile, given her appearance in last year's the paperboy, i think she is just choosing the wrong scripts.
my rating: 4.1/10
