Stoker

Ends tonight, May 9. The English-language debut of South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook is a stylishly updated pastiche of the Hitchcock-style psychothriller. The screenplay (credited to actor Wentworth Miller) sets up a steamy family melodrama full of transgressive possibilities—after her father is killed in a fiery car crash, the sanity of sulky teenager India Stoker (an excellent Mia Wasikowska) gets drastically tested. Her mother (a dotty Nicole Kidman) doesn’t seem very grief-stricken; doughty Aunt Gwendolyn (Jacki Weaver) comes to visit and immediately disappears; and her mysteriously disturbing Uncle Charlie (a subtly diabolical Matthew Goode) suddenly reappears in the family’s strangely turbulent life. The ensuing psychological mess is beyond credible solution, but the excellent cast and suavely perverse direction make the build-up of character-centered suspense a thing to behold. Pageant Theatre. Rated R.