"GOTHIKA" REVIEW by Joe Doe AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: A DISCUSSION OF THE MOVIE "GOTHIKA" As you might imagine, I was rather anxious to see "Gothika." But it is much more of a psychological/supernatural thriller than a "women in prison" movie. It doesn't have any strip search scenes, although its communal shower scene definitely has a strong element of exposure and humiliation. The film also contains a number of elements of power transfer and role reversal that members of the group might find entertaining. However, the themes were handled in a much more subtle and understated way than they would be in a story on this forum. I'm not going to review the move in the traditional sense, as there are dozens of reviews you can look up on the web for that. I'll try not to "spoil" the plot of the movie, but rather discuss the elements of the movie that might be of interest to a reader of this forum. If you don't want to know ANYTHING about the movie, stop reading now. I mean it. Stop reading. I'm not kidding. Still there? Good. The movie opens promisingly with a sharply dressed Halle Berry playing the crisp and professional Dr. Miranda Grey, a psychiatrist at a psychiatric prison for women. Miranda is the platonic ideal of a Joe Doe heroine: well-educated, beautiful, intelligent, resourceful, coolly confident, and professional. But she also has a rather haughty and superior attitude; when the movie opens she is listening with clinical detachment to a horrifying rape "fantasy" described by a patient played by Penelope Cruz, who was no doubt imprisoned there by Nicole after she found about her affair with Tom. So far so good -- an insane asylum that looks like a post modern remodeling of Dracula's castle, a beautiful but smug young doctor who treats her patients in an unsympathetic and condescending manner. If Dr. Miranda had kept up to date with the literature and read Dr. Nerdly's theories of "cosmic justice" she'd realize the danger she was in. Before long Miranda wakes up on her own asylum. Now SHE is the one whom no one believes, and SHE is the one whom everyone is talking down to. Not so snooty now, are we, Miranda? I know that short little medical smock shows quite a bit more leg than the stylish skirt you wore when you were a doctor. And that busted button on the back does leave your shoulder seductively bare. But you're going to have to get used to wearing the clothes we give you, just like the other patients. But, while the shortened hospital gown is a nice touch, it is also (from the point of view of this group) the film's first major disappointment. The film has initially dressed Miranda in a stylish and sophisticated black sweater and skirt combination, but then it never takes the time to relish stripping her out of those expensively stylish but (alas!) wholly inappropriate clothes. Imagine Dr. Miranda's humiliation at being forced to slowly surrender each of her garments under the amused gaze of the interns and nurses she had ruled over for years. "That's right, Miranda. Take off your skirt and put it in the box. Fold it up neatly...we don't want you to wrinkle it, dear.... The bra, too. We can't let you have anything you might hurt yourself with.... I'm sorry, but José and Tyrone have to be here in case you have a seizure.... Yes, the underpants too, dear.... Now bend over. I'm going to have to examine you to make sure you don't have any contraband." Though the lack of a strip search scene is a major disappointment, during the next 20 minutes or so we do get to watch a sadistic nurse teach the proud and independent doctor a lesson in humility. As a side note, I was traveling when I saw the film and ended up coming into the theatre about 30 minutes late. Since I wanted to see the entire movie, I stayed around for the second show. While I was waiting for them to clean up between shows, I ducked into another theatre that was showing "Gothika," and, as luck would have it, I got to watch the central "processing/shower" section of the movie twice. I mention this because this unique viewing method allowed me to witness the reaction of two separate audiences. A number of the male (and several of the female) audience members greeted each of Dr. Miranda's humiliations with lusty laughter and cheers. When the truly hateful nurse informed her, in a "isn't-it-just-peachy" sing-song voice, "It's time for your shower!" the audience laughed appreciatively. One gentlemen snickered, applauded, and nudged his girlfriend (who was also laughing). The reaction was the same in both showings with the laughs coming in all the same places. I don't claim any great insight from this; I'm just reporting what I observed. As I continue with my review, I'll mark the places the audience laughed, hooted, or applauded thus: [LAUGHTER]. And now that our popcorn break is over, back to the movie.... Dr. Miranda wakes up in her cell and meets with Dr. Pete Graham, played competently, but not particularly memorably, by the incomparable Robert Downey Jr. In the opening scenes, we had watched the smug and superior Dr. Miranda cheerfully shoot down Dr. Pete's pathetic advances, so now our poor heroine is placed in the rather ticklish position of being under the complete control of a man she rejected. (Oh dear!) The movie rings the bell of the power issues raised by this dynamic, but it never opens the door. At one point Miranda pleads with the head of the asylum for another doctor. His blithe dismissal of Miranda's justifiable concerns was so condescending and unsympathetic that I'm sure the screenwriter was inspired by stories in this group. (Smile!) However, the needs of the plot dictate that the audience be kept on the fence about Pete. (Friend or foe? Unlucky single guy or frustrated sex maniac?) In the film's early scenes, Dr. Miranda is clearly the one in control. ("You have to eat something," Dr. Pete pleads. "Not with you I don't," she replies happily, as she walks away from him with a big smile on her face.) In these opening scenes Dr. Pete is a pathetic loser, begging the married Dr. Miranda for a date (and presumably an affair) that he will clearly never get. Dr. Miranda's jaunty rejection underscores the power structure of their relationship. Dr. Miranda (always the crisp professional) returns to her office to work on her computer. Pete presumably eats his pizza alone while searching his cable dial for re-runs of "Monster's Ball." It is quite tasty when poor little Dr. Miranda is forced by radically changed circumstances to answer to the suddenly all-powerful Dr. Pete. He decides when she will be restrained, when she will be medicated, and whether or not her "delusions" are worthy of belief. But, in an attempt to keep us guessing about Pete's motivations, the director never allows him to display so much as a sly smile at Miranda's humiliating predicament. During her interview with Pete, Miranda is dressed in her short, off-the-shoulder hospital gown, but she is given more normal clothing before she is released into the general population cellblock. The cellblock appears to be the dayroom dumping ground for the female mental patients, and the tubby middle-aged nurse seems slyly amused as she escorts Dr. Miranda to her new playpen. Miranda is soon approached by Chloe, the patient portrayed by Penelope Cruz. Dr. Miranda had dismissed Chloe's rape story as an "embellishment," and Chloe makes it clear that she for one is delighted to see Miranda in her reduced circumstances. "You're not a doctor any more," she teases. "Now you're one of us." In the first scene the orderlies had hauled Chloe away when she tried to touch Dr. Miranda. Now Chloe teasingly pats and squeezes Miranda's face with total impunity as she taunts her. It's a nice physical representation of their role reversal; now that Miranda is a patient, the larger Chloe can touch her anytime she wants. When Miranda says, "You know I don't belong here," Chloe responds, "If you are here, you must belong here," cheerfully adding that "the more you protest, the crazier you'll seem." She also gets to repeat a line she used earlier in the show ("You can't convince someone who thinks you're crazy") only now the person trying to do the convincing is Miranda rather than Chloe. Revenge is sweet. After another restful nightmare Miranda is awakened by the pudgy Nurse Ratched impersonator, who tells her to "rise and shine...it's another day." When Miranda says she wants to see Pete, the nurse coolly informs her that "you can see the doctor later." This exchange emphasizes that Miranda is no longer a doctor summoning a junior colleague, but rather a mental patient begging to see a doctor who presumably has more important things to do. The nurse holds out a small paper cup with pills. In her best faux Mary Poppins voice, she cheerfully announces, "It's time for breakfast!" [LAUGHTER] The nurse is obviously tickled by the idea that the great Dr. Miranda is being forced to swallow tranquilizers -- dopers that will further rob her of her identity and aid in her transformation into a docile and manageable mental patient. After the obviously unhappy Dr. Miranda swallows her medicine, the smiling nurse condescendingly tells her that she's a good girl and merrily adds that "now it's time for your shower." The opening of the shower scene is definitely a highlight. The set designers obviously studied my stories carefully. It is a gang shower, large and open, with no walls and no curtains. The girls are forced to cluster together in a recessed pit and shower under the eyes of watchful guards on the sidelines. If all of the women were as fit and trim as Ms. Berry, the scene would be perfect. The matron certainly appreciates the Joe Doe spirit. "Time to wash away our sins," she says as Miranda, obviously aghast, looks at the showering women she'll soon be joining. The subtle implication is that the humiliating gang shower is somehow a punishment for Miranda's "sins": pride, success, independence. As Mary Pols in the Times wrote: EVERYONE WHO USED TO LOVE MIRANDA -– FROM THE LOCAL SHERIFF (JOHN CARROLL LYNCH) TO THE FORMERLY LOVESICK PETER (THE MERE SIGHT OF DOWNEY INSPIRES HOPE THAT THE MOVIE CAN BE SALVAGED, BUT IT IS NOT TO BE) -– NO LONGER HAVE [sic] ONE IOTA OF SYMPATHY FOR HER. HER COLLEAGUES IN THE PSYCH WARD ACTUALLY SEEM EXCITED TO GET A CHANCE TO BRING THE GOOD DOCTOR DOWN A PEG; A NURSE PUSHES MIRANDA INTO A NUDE GROUP SHOWER WITH AN EXPRESSION OF BARELY CONCEALED GLEE. The nurse naturally makes Miranda surrender her robe a good twenty feet from the shower. Why miss the fun of forcing her to prance across the room butt naked in front of a dozen people? The look of shame as the lovely former doctor reluctantly walks towards the shower, birthday bare, is simply too precious to miss. But the shower scene quickly changes tone, and a violent supernatural incident erupts. Miranda is injured in the shower by other-worldly forces, and the puzzled staff determines that she must have smuggled in a scalpel "somehow." This is a missed opportunity. Although Dr. Pete "examines" Miranda after the attack, his examination is nowhere nearly as thorough as we would like. Dr. Pete never even bothers to search her for a weapon! Let's see.... She was naked in the shower. Where might she have hidden a shank? Dr. Joe Doe would have instituted a new policy requiring thrice daily cavity searches for both Miranda and her nearest companion during the attack, Chloe. Regrettably these searches would have to be conducted in the presence of male orderlies strong enough to subdue the women in the event of another incident. Similar precautions would need to be taken in the shower: the female nurses were obviously totally unable to control the women during the attack. On the brighter side, I suspect there will be no shortage of minimum wage male orderlies willing to keep a close eye on Miranda during her showers. I'm sure they'll be happy to check every nook and cranny and assist in making sure that the snooty former doctor remembers her place. The rest of the movie is a standard supernatural thriller, and it doesn't warrant any particular consideration from the point of view of this forum. There are some reasonably entertaining images of Dr. Miranda scampering around the prison in her t-shirt. Indeed, the 87 pound actress seems extremely adept at bowling over people three times her size and running through security doors that seem to have been left open just for her. This entire section of the movie reminded me of Roger Ebert's definition of "Harrison Doors" -– doors in the movies that are powered by the star's charisma and slide shut just slowly enough to allow the star to escape while cutting off his pursuers. (These doors are named after Harrison Ford, who makes good use of them in "The Fugitive" and in his Indiana Jones and Star Wars films.) I also enjoyed the scene where Miranda eluded capture by hiding under the desk of a sympathetic guard. The guard covers for her, but, since he doesn't demand the services one might expect of a woman kneeling under a desk, I must conclude that he is not a reader of this forum. The movie does have some rather unpleasant images of kidnap and torture, and I can't say that I particularly recommend it based on the plot of the movie itself. None the less, I thought I should review "the good parts" as a service to our readers. See you at the movies. END Edited by C. Lakewood