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Thursday, December 18, 2003
Movie Review: Gothika
By Jojie Alcantara
Gothika
Starring: Halle Berry, Robert Downey, Penélope Cruz
Directed by: Mathieu Kassovitz
IN THE famed suspense flick, Sixth Sense, Haley Joel Osment sees dead people. In Gothika, Halle Berry follows suit.
The setting is the psychiatric ward of the Woodward Penitentiary for Women; a dank, sinister place that prepares you for troubled moments ahead. At Woodward, criminal psychologist Dr. Miranda Grey (played by Berry) treats psychotics such as Chloe (Penélope Cruz), who raves and rants about burning in the fires of Satan, and warns the doctor that she's about to get scorched, too.
Miranda is an impressively rational and skilled doctor, whose husband (played by Charles S. Dutton) is her boss. She regards Chloe as delusional.
One night on her way home, Miranda stops to help a naked and battered woman on the road, but is suddenly engulfed by flames.
When she wakes up, Miranda finds herself a patient in her own ward, a prisoner charged with the gruesome murder of her beloved and well-respected husband. The once coolly detached doctor suddenly becomes a raving lunatic with violent tendencies. Her former colleague Dr. Graham (Robert Downey Jr.) is confused whether to believe Miranda is innocent.
The movie plays up its suspenseful tone and convinces us that there must be more to Miranda's hallucinations. Only when the ghost becomes too violent (slashes her wrists in one bathroom scene, and blood gushes forth), does she worry not only of her mental condition, but her life this time.
For spookiness, Gothika knows how to hook you through the end. Sixth Sense or The Ring, it is not. While the film's haunting, tormented, long-haired ghost is reminiscent of Sadako's legacy, its plot differs in sense as well as logic. The climax does not really leave you breathless, though, but nonetheless, it takes you for a good ride just the same.
(December 18, 2003 issue)
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