Loyola Greyhound

Issue date: 11/10/09 Section: Arts & Society

Media Credit: MCT Campus Cameron Diaz believes that pushing the button in "The Box" can relate to real life experiences, including our current economic situation.

In a college conference call this past Wednesday, director Richard Kelly and stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden fielded questions about their upcoming film, "The Box."

The thriller is based on a short story, "Button, Button," written in 1970 by Richard Matheson and later turned into an episode of "The Twilight Zone." In the film, Diaz and Marsden play Norma and Arthur Lewis, a young couple who one day find a disfigured stranger, played by Frank Langella, on their doorstep delivering a mysterious box with a red button. He informs the couple that if they push the button they will receive one million dollars, but also someone they do not know will die.

Director Richard Kelly said that after reading "Button, Button" in his youth, the concept behind it "left a strong, strong footprint in my mind." While attempting to expand upon the story years later, Kelly said he wanted to explore whom the mysterious stranger worked for, why such an organization existed, and what its motive was in approaching the Lewis family.

Already a fan of Kelly's "very authentic" work, she jumped on board for the film when she learned he would be directing. For her part, Diaz recalled her interest in the "existential quandary" the script posed.

An interesting element of the film is the setting of 1976 Richmond, Virginia. Along with a decade-appropriate wardrobe, the stars donned southern accents.

The film's musical selections are also reflective of the era, with southern rock from The Grateful Dead, Wilson Pickett, and The Marshall Tucker Band and a pop song called "Bell Bottom Blues" by Derek and the Dominos.

Kelly wrote and created the film as a period piece "because the concept of someone you don't know, which is inherent to the premise, doesn't really exist anymore," he said. He feared that if the movie was set in the present, Norma (Diaz's character) would simply be "sitting in front of her laptop for half of the movie," google-ing the name of the stranger played by Langella.

He surmised, "there's something a bit more frightening…or people felt more vulnerable I think in the '70s because we didn't have all of these technologies that allowed us to spy on each other."

Continued...

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