Review
THE JACKET
Starring Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley and Kris Kristofferson
Directed by John Maybury
Opens Friday March 4
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After narrowly escaping death in the Persian Gulf War, soldier Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) is now suffering from shock-related amnesia. When Starks blacks out while hitchhiking along a desolate Vermont highway, he is surprised to wake up and find that he has been charged with the murder of a police officer. Found not guilty by reason of insanity due to his memory loss, Brody’s interpretation of the meek, fragile Starks renders his psychological stability more than ambiguous.
Starks is sent to a hospital for the criminally insane – a place just as lovely as it sounds – where the rogue Dr. Becker (Kris Kristofferson) subjects Starks to a cruel experimental treatment meant to free him of his criminal compulsions. On several occasions Becker and his underlings secretly drug Starks, put him in a straitjacket and let him stew in a morgue drawer for a few hours.
Terrified and tripped out, Starks begins to remember pieces of the war and the cop shooting. In these sequences, director John Maybury (Love is the Devil) demonstrates his background in experimental cinema with beautiful montages of abstract tableaus that are at times fluid and at times jarring.
After a few episodes in the drawer, and with the advice of inmate Mackenzie (an admirable performance by Daniel Craig), Starks finds out the treatment is not just the key to the past, but to the future as well. He travels 15 years forward in time and begins to spend time with Jackie, played by Keira Knightley. Though a little too beautiful to play a self-destructive truck-stop waitress, Knightley delivers a surprising performance. Through these trips in the jacket, Starks is able to find some answers to his perplexing existence.
Both visually sophisticated and well acted, The Jacket is an unusual treat. It received oodles of buzz at the Sundance film festival, where two critics reportedly almost came to blows over the last remaining seat at the press screening.
Not fitting easily into any one genre, The Jacket borrows judiciously from science fiction, thriller and romance with an overarching gothic esthetic. Since you’re not sure what genre of film you’re watching, you’re not sure what set of conventions will be followed. You may find yourself wishing for more explanation than the film offers, but ultimately you’re happy to play on its terms. The worst thing this film could do is slap on a no-loose-ends conclusion, but Maybury delivers an ending that is sure to spark debate. |
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