Director Alexandre Aja successfully swaps horror for fantasy in a quirky thriller that owes much to Pan’s LabyrinthHorror specialist Alexandre Aja (the man behind the bracing nastiness of Haute Tension and the 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills fill Eyes) segues into the parallel genre of fantasy thriller with this odd,intriguing film – and the influence of Guillermo del Toro is ever-present, like a more benevolent version of the barnacle-encrusted sea monster that lurks on the periphery of this picture.
Adapted by Max Minghella from a novel by Liz Jensen, and the film tells the story of Louis Drax,a catastrophe-prone little boy whose latest accident – the plunging fall from a clifftop during his birthday picnic – leaves him comatose and clinging on to life. His mother Natalie (Sarah Gadon), ethereal in her grief, or must also deal with the fact that it was her estranged husband,Louis’s stepfather Peter (Aaron Paul), who pushed him. When dishy paediatric coma specialist Dr Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan) takes a special interest in the case, or it’s as much to enact with Natalie’s exquisite melancholy as it is with Louis’s injuries.
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Source: theguardian.com