The Eye

After last month's awful One Missed Call, I wasn't really in the mood to watch another remake of an Asian horror film. The only thing that kept my spirits up walking into The Eye was that I had seen and was actually fond of the original 2002 Chinese film that inspired it. I'll give it to you straight. Yes, The Eye is a much better movie, and yes, that is not saying much. There are a lot of effective ideas, moments, and even a surprisingly strong lead character to be found here. Surprisingly, the main thing French filmmaking duo David Moreau and Xavier Palud (making their English language film debut here) get wrong is what should come easiest for a film of this type - the thrills and scares.

Ever since she was blinded at the age of 5 during a mishap with a firecracker, Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) has made the most of her life, and hasn't let her handicap prevent her from living and following her dreams of being a violinist for the local symphony. Still, she's always desired to be able to see again, so when her sister Helen (Parker Posey) discovers there's a transplant surgery that can restore her vision, Sydney agrees. The procedure is a success, and Sydney is immediately put under the care of Dr. Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola), who will help her adjust to seeing again after relying on all of her other senses for so long. There's something about her new eyes that no one in the medical profession can probably help her with, however. Almost as soon as the bandages are removed, Sydney starts seeing disturbing ghostly visions. These visions come in a variety of ways. She sees ghosts of the past who are forced to relive their tragic deaths over and over again, or sometimes she sees demonic shadow figures leading the recently deceased to the afterlife. Most of all, she is haunted by the visions of people trapped in a flaming building, and sometimes her very apartment changes and morphs into a completely different building that she's never seen before. Desperate for answers and for someone to believe her, Sydney is eventually able to convince Paul to help her track down the name of the donor who supplied her eyes, so that she can perhaps understand what these visions are trying to say and why this is happening to her.

Though being billed as a supernatural thriller, The Eye is actually much more effective as a drama about a woman who has learned to live without sight, and is suddenly thrown into a world she doesn't understand when she can see again. The film's first half mainly deals with Sydney's conflicted feelings and confusion when she is faced with sights that are familiar to her by touch or sound, but are completely foreign to her now that she is seeing them for the first time. There is a great scene where her sister Helen perhaps unwisely arranges all of Sydney's friends to be waiting for her at her apartment when she comes home from the hospital for the first time. Sydney can only recognize these people when they talk to her. The movie does a great job of putting us in the shoes of the character by intentionally shooting the scene out of focus, as these blurry images and faces come toward the camera. It gives what should be a happy and friendly moment a very strange and alien tone. It also helps us identify with what Sydney is going through. The screenplay by Sebastian Gutierrez (Snakes on a Plane) is wise to make her the central focus of most of the film. She has been written as a strong-willed and intelligent woman who we can immediately identify with, and we want to see her succeed. It's a nice change of pace from most of the heroines who inhabit horror films, who usually have their boyfriend or lack thereof as their most distinguishing character trait. The scenes that focus on Sydney and her adjusting to these new experiences are honest, intelligent, and sometimes more frightening than the scenes with the ghosts themselves.

That last sentence right there probably says a lot of why The Eye doesn't entirely work. The scares are virtually non-existent, because the movie can't think of anything for the ghosts that Sydney sees to do. They just kind of stand there in the background. Sometimes they're on fire, or sometimes they lunge at the camera in a cheap attempt to jolt the audience. But overall, the movie just can't seem to find a way to make them scary, and it winds up falling flat on its face when it tries to thrill us. Even scenes that should be effective, like how whenever Sydney looks at her reflection in the mirror, she sees someone completely different (she only discovers this when someone takes a picture of her, and she realizes her picture is different from the reflection she sees), don't quite work the way that they should. The movie is far too tame, almost as if it's afraid to truly go all the way and be scary. It thinks up ideas that could be frightening, but then it kind of just stops there. I don't know if this is a case of studio tampering or not, as the movie does not seem to be overly edited in any way. If this is indeed the vision of the filmmakers up on the screen, it's unfortunate. The movie wastes a lot of potential with the idea of Sydney trying to figure out this strange new world, while at the same time dealing with these bizarre visions and incidents. Also sloppy is how certain plot elements are raised and dropped at random, or unexplained all together. The ghost of a young boy who haunts Sydney's apartment building has absolutely no pay off or resolution whatsoever, even though the movie seems to be hinting it will be important when the child's mother briefly appears. The mother never appears again, nor is the moment Sydney meets her ever mentioned after that.

When it comes to the performances, there's nothing particularly special to note about here, though none of the acting is particularly bad. Jessica Alba is forced to pretty much carry the entire movie, and while she's not entirely successful, she pulls off the job much better than I expected. She's often been criticized of being strictly eye candy, but you can tell that she is at least trying here. She does a good job of displaying both the strength and vulnerability of Sydney. The only thing she has to do is learn a few more facial expressions, as she seems to cycle through the same ones over and over again. Coming across somewhat more blandly is Alessandro Nivola as the doctor initially assigned to help her adjust to seeing, and winds up risking his job to track down confidential medical information. We never quite get a grasp of what he thinks of her character, or why he's so willing to give up getting caught and fired from the medical profession for Sydney. It doesn't help that the thing that stands out the most about his performance is that he's in desperate need of a shave. As Sydney's sister, the very talented Parker Posey is merely cashing a paycheck in a thankless role that didn't even need her in the first place. I can only hope they money she got from this movie helps finance a much more interesting role for her.

I started out watching The Eye with growing interest and fascination, but grew somewhat bored when the special effects and ghouls started taking center stage. The main thing that held my attention throughout was the character of Sydney, and how I wanted to see her get through the situation she was in. Those expecting a fast-paced thrill-a-minute will most likely be disappointed. The movie is surprisingly timid, and will be hard pressed to raise the heart rate of even the most easily scared. That being said, this is not a bad movie in the least. There's quite a bit I admired here. It's just unfortunate none of it had to do with the horror aspects of the story.

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