Tags:
Film: Black Box
Year: 2020
Director: Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour
Writers: Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour and Stephen Herman
Starring: Mamoudou Athie, Phylicia Rashad and Amanda Christine
Review:
This is a movie that I forgot about. Back in 2020, this is one that I heard multiple podcasts talk about. It then clicked that this was Blumhouse teaming up with Amazon where they did four movies. What made me select this was looking for horror films that have a Black cast or director. This was done in celebration of Black History Month. Other than that, I came into this one blind.
Synopsis: after losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an agonizing experimental treatment that causes him to question who he is.
We start this with seeing a mother and father bringing their daughter home from the hospital. There is Nolan (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Najah Bradley) with their daughter Ava. It then turns out that this is Nolan watching an old video. There has been tragedy since that time. Rachel passed away in a car accident. Nolan was brain dead and no one thought he was going to make it. That was until Dr. Lillian (Phylicia Rashad) saved him with experimental treatment.
There are side effects though. Nolan has problems remembering. Ava (Amanda Christine) is doing more than she should as a child her age. She is trying to help her father get back to the person that he was. We see that he gets angry and that scares her. He even punched a hole in the wall, which was out of the normal for him.
Nolan does have help though. His best friend is also a doctor, Gary (Tosin Morohunfola). He thinks that his friend is doing too much and rushing things. Nolan also keeps getting calls from Dr. Lillian who believes she can help him. This makes Nolan leery, but he keeps forgetting things. He is scolded by a teacher at Ava’s school for forgetting to pick her up. He also cannot get the publisher to agree to using his work. This doctor claims she can help get him back to being who he was. There could be something more to what she is claiming though and help explain why Nolan doesn’t feel like himself anymore. It involves hallucinations that he has as well as using this experimental treatment that allows him to explore memories. They might not be his though.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that this does things well. It is fitting that this came out from Blumhouse as this shares a concept with another of their movies that is considered a classic. That’s all I’ll say there to not spoil this or that movie if you haven’t seen both. While you are watching this though, it makes sense. Another thing that I enjoy here is the heart that it develops with Nolan and his struggle about how the accident changed him.
I believe that is where I’ll start. Nolan was a photographer. He was quite good as well. We learn through him talking to Gary that he and Rachel were happy. They never seemed to fight and their lives were perfect with Ava. That is when this accident messed up everything. Now he cannot remember little things, like his secret handshake with Ava or even picking her up from school. My thoughts were that the accident messed with is short term memory. That is part of it, but there is something more. I thought that Athie does a great job here with his range of emotions. He has frustration that leads to anger. There is love that he has for his daughter and then as he starts to discover the truth about himself, he changes into a different person. This worked for me.
Now I want to talk about the people that surround him. Ava is doing everything that she can to help. What bothers me here is that she is being too grown up for a child. That’s too much responsibility for someone her age. What I love though is that she wants them to stay together. Kudos to Christine here for her performance. I love that Gary is there to help as well, but Nolan is proud and refuses. There is also Dr. Lillian, but there could be ulterior motives there.
That leads me to the next point. This is a mad scientist sort of movie. She has created this technology that allows her to investigate the minds of patients. This is how she got Nolan to wake up. There’s more to this though and she might even be able to save the consciousness of patients as well. This is how Nolan came out of his coma and needs to work through memories to cure his condition. It is doing this that he runs into the Backwards Man (Troy James). This is done by a contortionist and is quite creepy if I’m honest. I liked how that built tension.
Now I’ve pretty much run through all the stars of this movie. I’ll reiterate here that Athie, Rashad, Christine and Morohunfola are good. They carry this movie as it is a character study of Nolan and his life. I’ll also credit Charmaine Bingwa who is Miranda. She factors into Nolan’s life through memories, but he isn’t sure why. There is also Thomas who is played by Donald Elise Watkins. I like how he factors in here. Bradley is good along with Nyah Marie Johnson. There isn’t a bad performance here as they all push Nolan to where he needs to go and help build the emotion.
I’ll end this out with filmmaking. I thought this was well-made. The cinematography and framing are good. I love that Nolan is exploring memories to fix his problem so that brings a dreamlike feel. Then going along with this, he can’t remember faces. That is what he needs to solve to help himself, but this could also be what hurts him. How the Backwards Man factors in was good there as well. There is CGI here, but it was fine. Since we’re in the mind for this, it makes sense since it’s like a dream. I’d also say the soundtrack was solid. My issue is that this isn’t exploring new ideas. We’ve seen this done elsewhere using different concepts so it feels a bit generic. If it didn’t bring emotion through the character development, this would be forgotten.
In conclusion, this movie is fine. I want to like it more than what I did. That is because Athie was so good as Nolan. I love how the characters around him push him to where he ends up. This movie tugged at my heartstring seeing certain decisions. We get mad scientist aspects, which I’m a fan of. The problem is that there are concepts and things done that we’ve seen elsewhere to this just doesn’t feel original enough. I’d still recommend it though if you’re a Blumhouse fan. This isn’t a bad movie and worth at least a watch in my opinion.
My Rating: 7 out of 10