Wentworth Miller's Addicted

 Stoker

There should be a different word besides “directing” for what Park Chan-wook does with Stoker, like the more intense versions of the word “love” Alvy tries to come up with in Annie Hall. His work is tour-de-force material in this thriller about 18-year-old India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska), a strange girl whose world is turned upside-down by the death of her beloved father and the coinciding arrival of Charlie (Matthew Goode), an uncle she never knew existed. Yes, a mysterious, possibly dangerous “Uncle Charlie” evokes Shadow of a Doubt, but Wentworth Miller's script is much more straight-ahead gothic than that, spinning towards a series of wild revelations that feel absurdly over-the-top. But the ride towards that conclusion is simply stunning, with Park serving up brilliantly cross-cut scenes of impending doom, delicious individual shots and one jaw-dropping dissolve from the brushed hair of India's mother (Nicole Kidman) to a field of grass. Even that dramatic cliché of the post-trauma “cleansing shower” gets turned into something crazy. Maybe it doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's the kind of doesn't-make-a-lick-of-sense that leaves you with a goofy smile from watching a master at work. (Scott Renshaw)