Movie review: 'A Cure for Wellness' suffers from a overly convoluted plot

Don't drink the water. That's the general message of 'A Cure for Wellness'. Also, don't drink anything before or during the movie as it will feel like an eternity if you need to use the loo - the film is way too long, too slow and dreary.

Water is the main conduit of evil in this gothic psychological thriller. The director, Gore Verbinski, fails to get the thrills, but he gets the psychological part right - it's seriously mental.

You have incest, infected water, zombie Stepford patients, an isolated castle, creepy corridors, oodles of eels, teeth-pulling, angry villagers and a century-old myth about a sinister baron who marries his sister.

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Dane DeHaan (the star of indie hit Kill Your Darlings, who looks like a cross between a young Leonardo DiCaprio and Colin Hanks) is Lockhart, an ambitious Wall Street executive whose creative accounting leads him to be blackmailed by the board of his company into retrieving its errant CEO.

Lockhart (who seems to despise travelling as it takes him away from his work) has to go to an exclusive wellness spa in the Swiss Alps and convince the CEO, Pembroke, to come back and accept responsibility for the company's corrupt accounts.

Lockhart realises it won't be a quick trip. He is stalled in his requests to see Pembroke . He also realises that he can't leave (no one leaves, as we are told many times). As he is being driven down the mountain, the car hits a deer, spins out of control and Lockhart's leg is broken . Three days later he wakes up in the spa, now a patient.

Jason Isaacs's character, Dr Heinrich Volmer, is the mastermind of the wellness centre and is its general manager too. But what is he hiding? And why is Lockhart such a threat? The first question has been answered at the beginning of the film, when clues are force-fed to the audience. The answer to the second lies with the character of the child-woman Hannah (Mia Goth), who is a "special patient".

She and Lockhart are the only young ones around and could prove problematic for Volmer and his stomach-churning plans.

Verbinski's vision is strong in this one. You can see where he was trying to go - the cinematography and soundtrack are surreal and atmospheric, the sets are sterile yet stylishly Art Deco with clinical mint greens and blues. It's just a pity that the story is so convoluted that it loses its plot - and that the ending is a clichéd, damp squib.

Watch the trailer for A Cure for Wellness

RATING: 2/5 stars

 • 'A Cure for Wellness' opens in South African cinemas later this month.