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"Director: Chan-wook Park; Screenwriters: Wentworth Miller; Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode, Jacki Weaver, Lucas Till; Running time: 98 mins; Certificate: 18  It&amp;#039;s been a while since Hollywood last took a stab at Hamlet \u00E2\u20AC\u201C the most recent effort being 2000&amp;#039;s flawed Ethan Hawke-starrer \u00E2\u20AC\u201C but with his compellingly bonkers English-language debut, Park Chan-wook has created something like a female-led Hamlet, albeit a twisted version that&amp;#039;s substantially lighter on dialogue than any genuine Shakespeare adaptation could be.  Chan-wook&amp;#039;s best known on these shores for his visceral and character-driven Vengeance Trilogy, so it&amp;#039;s no struggle to see how this script (penned, unexpectedly, by former Prison Break star Wentworth Miller) falls right in his wheelhouse. India (Mia Wasikowska) is an emotionally distant 18-year-old living with her mother (Nicole Kidman, playing the fading belle with brittle efficiency) in a sprawling mansion somewhere in the deep South, and mourning the recent death of her father in a car accident.  You can&amp;#039;t have a Southern melodrama without a gentleman caller, and in this case it&amp;#039;s the arrival of India&amp;#039;s mysterious Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) that turns the dial from subtle disquiet into out-and-out psychodrama, as both mother and daughter develop fixations of a different kind with this charming near-stranger.   Although she has never even heard of Charlie before, India feels an immediate kinship with him that&amp;#039;s tempered by a sense of dread, and so begins an unsettling cat-and-mouse game in which the roles are continually in flux. They&amp;#039;re bonded by a mutual ability to see and hear what others don&amp;#039;t, although it&amp;#039;s never clear whether this means they both have superior senses, or that they both have hallucinations. He fosters an animalistic side in her, which we see enacted through food, sex and violence, and she grows simultaneously suspicious of and besotted with him.  Stoker is a film led more by its pictures than its words, and Chan-wook throws his audience off-balance from the beginning with disorienting visual flourishes and a starkly drawn contrast between interior and exterior space. The hard right angles and dark, Gothic corners of the Stoker house are off-set by the open spaces beyond - the fields and forests where, we learn, India used to hunt with her father - and the disparity becomes crucial to understanding these remote, chilly characters. While Wasikowska is easily one of the most talented actresses of her generation (watch her breakthrough role on HBO&amp;#039;s In Treatment if you&amp;#039;re still in any doubt), she&amp;#039;s curiously flat here - India feels like she should be a complex and rich protagonist, but the progression you&amp;#039;re waiting for never quite comes. Goode&amp;#039;s similarly hamstrung by Chan-wook and Miller&amp;#039;s emphasis on style over character, although the twist-filled third act serves him better than anyone else and his performance is ultimately the one that haunts the most.  You might well find yourself wishing for more depth, or more humanity, but Stoker is an invigoratingly unique animal, a psychological thriller that doesn&amp;#039;t walk or talk like any other, and a fairy tale in which the princess is indistinguishable from the monster.    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a460075/stoker-review-mia-wasikowska-stars-in-southern-gothic-fairy-tale/>