It spirals more and more out of control until no one – either in the audience or on the screen – can really tell which way is up

I am beginning to question my commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Director Richard Kelly had an avid fan after Donnie Darko, but his most recent follow-up, The Box, just doesn’t deliver. See, The Box would be really interesting if it wasn’t so boring. That may seem obvious, but something about the movie should be since most of it is a garbled mess.

At first The Box is a sociology 101 experiment: a $1 million gift is offered to a couple if they are willing to push a button that will cause the death of a stranger. Will they push it? What is a stranger’s life worth? What are the ramifications of pushing the button? It’s similar to Indecent Proposal when Robert Redford offers Demi Moore a million bucks to sleep with him (yeah, like he’d have to pay for it). But what starts out like Indecent Proposal ends up like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The Box is actually a science fiction cautionary tale of humankind’s destructive and selfish nature. Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur (James Marsden) are a suburban couple in Richmond, Virginia, having a bad run of luck – she found out they can’t afford private school for their son, and he’s not going to be an astronaut after years of working at NASA, most recently on the Viking mission to Mars (the film is set in 1976). So when a mysterious man (Frank Langella), makes them the million-dollar offer, Norma pushes the button. They – and the audience – suffer through some hand wringing before taking the plunge, but the lady never protests too much.

As the couple deals with the consequences of their actions, things get more and more bizarre. There are multiple buttons and boxes, dead bodies pop up everywhere, and creepy people seem to follow Norma and Arthur’s every move. It spirals more and more out of control until no one – either in the audience or on the screen – can really tell which way is up.

Kelly takes his sweet time setting up the film, and then more time revealing each clue. But rather than a glimpse into the real story behind the button (it should really be titled The Button instead of The Box), each new piece of information seems to taunt rather than clarify. There’s an air of pretentiousness to the film that didn’t mire down Donnie Darko. With Donnie, it was like everyone was along for the ride together; in The Box, it’s like you’re being fleeced by a cabbie taking the long way around because he knows you’re from out of town.

As compelling as Diaz can be, she should not, under any circumstance, try to do a Southern accent again. Likewise, it’s fortunate that a limp she’s saddled with is rectified fairly quickly. Neither infuses naturally with the character, so they come off as unconvincing and distracting. Marsden is a little more reliable as Arthur, but it’s good he’s playing the intellectual lead man rather than the brawny protagonist. Let’s just say he makes a credible scientist.

If Diaz’s accent is distracting, then Langella’s face is nearly film-stopping. He plays a horribly disfigured man with tendons and exposed teeth à la Two-Face in The Dark Knight. The computer generated scarring and face removal is mesmerizing, to the point that it’s tough to concentrate on what he saying when the jaw is flapping.

However, just as Mad Men is fun to watch for the props, seeing the mid-70s décor can be a fun pastime when the plot just gets too crazy. The wallpaper alone is good for a chuckle or two when needed most.

There are all sorts of references to texts which theoretically support the film, including Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, the Bible, and sociological concepts like the Altruism Theory. There’s enough to fill a semester’s worth of reading, and while it can lead to a good 24 hours of conversation about what Kelly was trying to do, at the end of that time one question is going to prevail, “Does this film deserve so much time spent on deciphering it?” Sadly, the answer is no. You’re better off sticking to Donnie Darko, and maybe you’ll find that Sparkle Motion pride again.