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'Asylum' bristles with atmosphere and strong acting

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In a better world, Natasha Richardson would star in at least two movies a year. The daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, she has her mother's extraordinary talent and breathless sensuality. Like mom, when Richardson's turned on onscreen, you can feel the heat.

Paramount Classics

'Asylum'

B-

The verdict: You'll be crazy about Natasha Richardson; the movie, perhaps, less so.

Directors: David MacKenzie, Mace Neufeld, Edward Saxon
Starring: Natasha Richardson, Marton Csokas, Ian McKellen, Hugh Bonneville, Sean Harris
Run time: 90 minutes
Release date: August 12, 2005
Rating: R for strong sexuality, some violence and brief language.
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In the uneven yet compelling "Asylum," she plays Stella, the bored wife of boring hubby Max (Hugh Bonneville), who has just taken a job as the deputy director at a massive mental hospital for the criminally insane just outside of London. The director himself (Joss Ackland) is retiring soon, and Max's appointment can be seen as a deliberate snubbing of Dr. Peter Cleave (Ian McKellen), who's been at the hospital for a long time.

It's 1959 and doctors' wives are expected to be, well, doctors' wives. Conservative, inconsequential and on the ready to volunteer for fruitcake duty for the institute's annual holiday dance for the patients.

Restless and resentful — the only thing holding her to the stiffly ambitious Max is their little boy (Augustus Jeremiah Lewis) — Stella easily falls into an affair with a handsome inmate named Edgar (Marton Csokas). Cleave's favorite patient, he's been assigned by the doctor to fix up a greenhouse for her. What begins as mutual lust grows into full-blown love.

Oh, did I mention Edgar was sent to the asylum for murdering his wife? Not just a plain old gunshot or stabbing. He bludgeoned her to death, cut off her head and gouged out her eyes.

The thought occurs: Has the scheming Cleave deliberately put both his patient and his rival's wife in harm's way?

"Asylum" is based on Patrick McGrath's novel of erotic obsession. McGrath also wrote the chilling "Spider," which was made into a remarkable movie starring Ralph Fiennes. The screenplay is by another Patrick, Patrick Marber, who wrote the script for "Closer." Classy credits, certainly, but those who know the book may find the movie lacks its complexity and emotional power. However, taken on its own terms, the film bristles with atmosphere and strong acting.

McKellen is at his reptilian best, with hooded eyes and a general air of random maliciousness. Bonneville and Ackland are effective in more limited roles. And Csokas — though he lacks the nuanced inner fire Russell Crowe or Daniel Day-Lewis or even, a decade ago, Richardson's husband, Liam Neeson, would've brought to the role — smolders convincingly.

Still, Richardson is the reason to see "Asylum." A lot of what happens doesn't really make sense, yet her intensity hooks us. We're drawn into Stella's frustration, anger and hothouse sexuality. She's a woman trapped. In the wrong decade, in the wrong place, with the wrong husband. And maybe the wrong lover. Watching her negotiate all these wrongs and try to make them somehow right for herself gives "Asylum" an emotional core that helps offset how overwrought everything else is.