Crimson Peak – Beautiful, scary Gothic drama
Guillermo del Toro is a spectacular director. He’s always had an eye for beautiful visuals that are ironically placed in situations where they should be ugly. Two of his films, Pan’s Labyrinth and Pacific Rim are filled with terrifying monsters that should look horrifying, but are truly gorgeous in their design. Del Toro’s most recent film, Crimson Peak is more of the same, with beautiful visuals, a few scares and a pretty entertaining story to go along with it.
Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is the daughter of the Albany, New York business man Carter (Jim Beaver) in the Victorian Age of the world. Her father is visited by a member of British aristocracy, Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), whose family has recently gone under and he is trying to dig them out of it. Edith and Thomas take a liking to each other, and after a family tragedy they are married and move to his estate. Edith lives there with Thomas and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) and she seems to be enjoying her new life, but Edith also has an ability to see spirits, and she is shocked by the number of spirits haunting the old house. The ghosts try to communicate with her, and slowly Edith realizes that this house is dangerous, and that the Sharpe’s are not what they seem.
The visuals of this film are beautiful, and I expect nothing but the best from Guillermo del Toro. He is a cinema master and he knows how to paint a scene. The house is in a state of disrepair, but there is a certain beauty as the main hall’s floor is covered in leaves and snow due to the massive hole in the ceiling. The later scenes of the red stained snow is both beautiful and haunting, and is perfectly woven in to the story. The beauty of Edith and Thomas embracing as his long trench coat whips around them is such an amazing visual that adds so much imagery to the film. Some of my favorite scenes of the film take place in the terrifying basement of the house, but I wish to say no more for fear of spoiling the film.
The performances are wonderful. Mia Wasikowska’s performance of Edith is very convincing as a haunted, but powerful, soul who finds solace in the lives of Thomas and Lucille, and her motivations are very understandable. Tom Hiddleston is terrific, he works as both a dastardly manipulator, and a gothic heart-throb. It is very easy to understand why Edith would be drawn in by his hypnotic spell, and his internal conflict related to his feelings for Edith are also very well portrayed. The performance that really impressed me was from Jessica Chastain, she is distant, she is haunting, she is charming and I was in awe of her performance. One wonders if Chastain ever took a break from being in character during filming because her role is done with such gravitas that it is difficult to imagine her as anyone except Lucille Sharpe. Also, the juxtaposition between her character in this film and in The Martian was delightful, it was entertaining to see her play two extremely different characters.
In terms of what wasn’t great about the film. There were a few plot holes, and some characters seemingly have little purpose, this includes Burn Gorman’s performance as Holly who is thrust upon an actor who is terrific, but is consistently thrust in positions lower than his abilities. I also found that some of the dialogue was weak and I wished it had strayed away from being too cliché.
All in all, I really enjoyed this film. It’s not only visually pleasing, but its story is quite entertaining and set in a time period and genre that we sadly do not see enough of. I hope to see more films in this genre and I hope the seeds sewn by the mind of the brilliantly crazy del Toro will be the changing factor.
Crimson Peak is rated R for violence, blood, gore, brief frightening imagery, some sexual content, brief nudity, and a some strong language. It is currently playing in theaters nationwide.