The Downsides of Matriarchy: The Wicker Man
Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn

Review by Breanne Boland September 7, 2006 Issue

Usually when a remake of an older movie inspires you to seek out the original, it's to see how it was done better the first time. Fortunately, that's not the case with this new version of The Wicker Man. I want to see the original now, but only to see another take on this quick-witted, slow-burning story.

Police officer Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) is called to Summersisle by a letter from his long-lost ex-fiancÈe, requesting his help in finding her vanished daughter. Life has been rough for him in recent months, so her strange summons is all it takes for him to leave California for the private island in the Pacific Northwest she now calls home. When he arrives, he finds the island's residents to be uncooperative and deceitful, talking in circles if they answer his questions at all.

Stranger still, the island is inhabited almost exclusively by women, barring a few silent, subservient men. The women deny the lost girl even existed. When confronted with incontrovertible proof she did once live on the island, they change their stories repeatedly, giving him no useful information and leaving him more confused than before. However, bit by bit, one interrogation at a time, he begins to think there's far more going on than a simple disappearance. Despite being vastly outnumbered and entirely out of his element, he perseveres, determined to save this missing girl from a fate more sinister than simple death.

Rather than the over-the-top homogenous eeriness of Village of the Damned and its ilk, the neo-pagan tribe of women in this film is realistic enough to be genuinely scary. They're not stereotypical hippies or witches or statuesque Amazons — they're off-kilter but believable villains, a united front with a hundred impudent faces, which makes Malus's pursuit all the more enthralling. Add to this the fact that he takes anti-psychotics to deal with the aftereffects of a traumatic event in his past (which don't always work), and you have one thoroughly bewildered main character, an isolated man in a land of women.

Best of all, this is a film with a sense of humor. This can be credited to director/writer Neil LaBute, whose earlier films were character-driven indie stories, more reliant on dialogue than the average slasher flick. Unlike other intentionally funny horror movies like Scream or the Scary Movie quartet, the sense of humor doesn't diffuse the tenseness of scenes or undermine the general mood of the film. This intelligence is also responsible for the women in the film being presented as sinister and untrustworthy without veering into sexism or stereotypes.

The Wicker Man is an excellent chaperone into darker, gloomier autumn, a smart thriller with a twist that feels natural, rather than deceptive, as with some of M. Night Shyamalan's films. Cage can be so serious and poker-faced sometimes, it's marvelous to see him being a big, goofy cop, or to see him running through the woods in a bear suit. Scary movies can be so dour and brainless sometimes. The Wicker Man is a credit to the genre.

Bottom line: smart and tense to the last

Also Playing: Idlewild
This film, set in prohibition-era Georgia, is much like Outkast's albums — two people working more alongside each other than with each other. In this case, Antwon Patton and Andre Benjamin tell stories sharing a place and a time, but otherwise snake around each other more than overlapping or blending. This musical, which is in the vein of Moulin Rouge and other anachronism-loving, stylish films, is messy and sometimes more earnest than polished. However, if you can admire a film for its ambition rather than its execution, or if you're excited about the chance to see Outkast explore another medium, Idlewild's worth a couple of hours.

Opening September 8

Hollywoodland - could act as a complement to next week's Black Dahlia, another expose of old Hollywood. A PI (Adrien Brody) investigates the death of original Superman George Reeves (Ben Affleck) and, of course, discovers there may be more to the truth than the obvious.

The Covenant - a B horror movie from the guy whose Exorcist prequel managed to out-suck the abysmal sequels from the 70s and 80s? Guess what I'm doing Friday! (Laundry!)

Opening September 15

Gridiron Gang - ok, it's a formulaic underdog kind of movie about kids in a juvenile detention center who find redemption through football, but they find it with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. If you'd told me five years ago that a goofy ex-wrestler would be a draw for me, I would have laughed at you, but here we are, and he is.

The Black Dahlia - an inquiry into one of the more infamous murders of 1940s Hollywood, based on James Ellroy's novel about the true event.

The Last Kiss - in which Zach Braff has some quarter-life crisis, making him question his relationship with his pregnant girlfriend. If this movie is even a quarter as ponderous and navel-gazing as Garden State, I'm staying far away.

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