Asylum had promise. But it's bad enough to make one wonder just who had the loose screws -- the characters, or the people who filmed them?
Overview
A woman becomes very curious about one of her psychiatrist husband's inmates, a man who was found guilty in the murder and disfigurement of his former wife.
Director and cast
- David Mackenzie Director
- Natasha Richardson as Stella Raphael
- Hugh Bonneville as Max Raphael
- Ian McKellen as Dr. Peter Cleave
- Joss Ackland as Jack Straffen
- Gus Lewis as Charlie Raphael
- Wanda Ventham as Bridie Straffen
- Maria Aitken as Claudia Greene
- Hazel Douglas as Lilly
- Marton Csokas as Edgar Stark
- Judy Parfitt as Brenda Raphael
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Patrick McGrath's screenplay, based on his novel, has moments big and small, delivered in appropriate dollops of awfulness.
It's a movie you fall for or you don't, and like Stella, I am not ashamed I did.
Once characters' actions lose credibility, it's hard to empathize with them, no matter how well the roles are played.
The film, with its uniformly terrific cast, stern Gothic overtones and steady but measured pacing, is a crisp, old-fashioned delight, eschewing cheap tricks for repeated tiny pricks of unease that work up to a continuous gnawing dread.
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