When India's father dies in a tragic and unexplained car crash, she is introduced to her handsome and mysterious Uncle Charlie at the funeral. Disarmed by his interest in her, she quickly becomes infatuated with him, and obsessessed by the developing relationship between him and her unstable mother.Stoker is almost a perfect film. Each frame is a stylish and delicately assembled image, filled by Matthew Goode's magnetic stage presence and Mia Wasikowska's fragile intensity. Nicole Kidman is surprisingly spot on as India's brittle yet softly-spoken mother.
This is a story about blood: the director Chan-wook Park questions the uneasy balance between the influences of nature and nurture. But it also tells the story of India's coming-of-age and her sexual awakening, albeit in an unusual fashion. In her words there is an insightful and perceptive truth about the development of her indentity: 'I'm not formed by things that are of myself alone. I wear my father's belt tied around my mother's blouse, and shoes which are from my uncle. This is me. Just as a flower does not choose its color, we are not responsible for what we have come to be. Only once you realize this do you become free, and to become adult is to become free.'The story line is a little directionless at times, and the Gothicism begins to spiral into absurdity, but director Chan-wook Park has produced a film that beats with a palpable intensity and elegance, the tension rising slowly but breathlessly towards a hideous climax.
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