Stoker review: Not at all what I expected

Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska as Evie and India Stoker

So, today I watched a film that I have wanted to view for a very long time, Stoker. Being a massive Nicole Kidman fan, when I read the cast list, I didn't need much persuading in wanting to see this movie. Not convinced by Wasikowska's talents in Alice In Wonderland, but proved wrong after watching her in The Kids Are All Right, I was optimistic from the get-go and intrigued by the talent in the film.

All the visuals that were cropping up for the movie just made me all the more excited. The posters were so different to anything I had seen in a very long time, and I loved the style of not only the text and the poster themselves, but the clothes and look of the characters within the film. Then they released the trailer, and I could barely contain myself. When I described the premise to other people, I would say "I can tell this is going to be my new favourite film, I just know it!" But realistically, I was leaping too eagerly into something I actually didn't know much about at all.



Throughout I couldn't help but think that this what not the film that the trailer presented. I knew it would be weird and I was looking forward to something a little different, but it was a completely different weird than what I had come to expect. It seemed to rely on sexuality and hallucinations to present the sense of uneasy, and this greatly disappointed me. So many films in the alternative genre play so heavily on the idea of forbidden, almost bordering on twisted, sexual imaginations, that it did not feel like this film was doing anything new. I had hoped from the trailer that the film would be more about family, secrets and brutality rather than 'I fancy the good-looking creepy uncle'.

I came away thinking that actually, it wasn't weird enough. The trailer boasted some really disturbing visuals and I guess I was hoping that Stoker would be a little scarier than it turned out to be. This is obviously based on personal perception, perhaps someone not so into horror pictures would find this quite perturbing, but for me, if they had really gone for it, it could have made for a really unique, freaky film.

I'm not really here to tell you about the story, I know that is what a review normally does, but I actually think Stoker would work best if you don't know anything about it all. I think the fact that I went into it knowing it would be a real indie, art-house thriller/horror, almost tainted my opinion on it as I went into knowing I was going to be "shocked". If I had not put some much hype surrounding it beforehand, I most likely would have come away thinking this is a much more perfect movie than I did.

If there is one thing that did not surprise me at all about the film, is it IS effortlessly stylish. Everything about it is meticulously designed and considered, this is evident and the costuming and styling of the characters is nothing less than divine.

English actor, Matthew Goode plays the mysterious "Uncle Charlie"

Don't let my slightly negative viewpoint deter you from actually seeing Stoker.  The film itself is actually very good, and definitely worth at least a one-time watch. My only (slightly bias) criticism is that there wasn't nearly enough Kidman. But Wasikowska and Goode are certainly good second-bests.