Gothika (2003) Movie Review
Gothika is a 2003 psychological thriller film directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and starring Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Penélope Cruz, and Charles S. Dutton. The film follows a psychiatrist who wakes up as a patient in the asylum where she worked, with no memory of why she is there or what she has done.
The film received mixed reviews from critics and audiences, who praised the performances of the main actors, but criticized the plot and the lack of suspense.
Gothika (2003) Movie Summary
Mathieu Kassovitz’s film is full of more absurd moments than any other recent film. I predicted plot twists and lines of dialogue long before they were uttered. Improbabilities abound (Charles Dutton, serial killer? (C’mon!) and the finale is pretty stupid).
What a bunch of nonsense. Like his last picture The Crimson Rivers, Mathieu Kassovitz’s excess of style resembles a scrapbook, as if he’s pulled pieces from a variety of other films and sewn them together in a steroid-pumped chimaera. It has more bizarre moments than any other recent film that comes to mind. I foresaw narrative twists as well as particular bits of speech long before they were spoken.
Rain, lightning, a Karloff-grade mental institution that seems to be trapped in 1923, and a persistent wandering camera evoking a spook’s eye perspective. When the mysterious ghost girl comes behind our heroine (Halle Berry), a fantastic jump-inducing horror loses its punch after being repeated 1,765 times. However, any picture starring Penelope Cruz as a lunatic asylum prisoner and hitting just the perfect note of self-satirizing melodrama has something to offer.
There are several improbabilities (Charles Dutton, serial killer? (C’mon!) The ending is also a bit of a shambles. When Halle’s knight in shining armour is Robert Downey Jr., you know she’s in danger, which means she can’t count on him to save her since he’s probably passed out somewhere beneath a pile of brown sugar.
Some of the cast and crew of Gothika are:
- Halle Berry as Miranda Grey, a psychiatrist who is accused of murdering her husband.
- Robert Downey Jr. as Pete Graham, a colleague and friend of Miranda who tries to help her.
- Penélope Cruz as Chloe Sava, a patient of Miranda who claims to be rap$d by the devil.
- Charles S. Dutton as Dr. Douglas Grey, Miranda’s husband and the chief of the mental institution.
- John Carroll Lynch as Sheriff Ryan, a local lawman who investigates the murder case.
- Bernard Hill as Phil Parsons, a former patient of Miranda who holds a key to the mystery.
- Mathieu Kassovitz as the director, who also co-produced the film with Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis.
- Sebastian Gutierrez as the writer, who also wrote the screenplay for Snakes on a Plane (2006).
- John Ottman as the composer, who also edited the film and composed the music for X-Men 2 (2003).
If you want to read more reviews, watch the trailer, or see the poster of Gothika, you can check out some of the links below:
IMDb page for the full cast and crew, trivia, and user reviews.
Rotten Tomatoes page for the critic reviews and audience ratings.
Official trailer for a glimpse of the film’s plot and style.
The Movie Database page for the poster, ratings, and social reviews.
