The plot follows Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), an aspiring writer and daughter of an industrialist in Buffalo, New York. She meets a dashing English baronet, Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain), when they two of them come to America to looking for investors for Thomas's mining invention. Edith and Thomas marry and return to the Sharpe Estate, Allerdale Hall, in Cumberland, England, where the appearance of ghosts suggests that the Sharpes hold more than a few horrible secrets.
Edith's narrative takes some of its feminist cues from Jane Eyre. Despite being swept off her feet by Sharpe, she never conforms to the "damsel in distress" archetype. She's the antithesis of Wendy Torrance, a kind of fleshed out, complex version of the "final girl" who survives with intelligence and ferocity. Even as her admirer McMicheal swoops in to Allerdale to save her, he is immediately incapacitated, leaving Edith to handily rescue both of them. As an aspiring writer, she's told by a potential publisher that because he is a woman, a love story must be added to her manuscript. She also decides to increase her chances of getting published in the Atlantic Monthly, she will submit her story as a typed document, in order to conceal her 'feminine handwriting.' At the close, we learned that Edith has used the trauma to her advantage; she had written and published a novel called Crimson Peak. She has not only saved herself, but she has also fulfilled her greatest dream. Crimson Peak allows Edith's character to mature; it's a coming of age tale in the most dire of circumstances. She remains at the emotional core throughout the film, and her rationality acts as a force of stabilization that carries us through the melodramatic extravagances of the action.
Edith may well be the heart and soul of Crimson Peak, but the real fun lies in the melodrama- and in Jessica Chastain's campy performance as Lucille Sharpe. Chastain's Lucille is palpably demented from her first appearance on screen to her last, and she's fun to watch, a far cry from her performance in Zero Dark Thirty or A Most Violent Year. In comparison, Tom Hiddleston is nearly lifeless.
The most sucessful player in the film in not an actress (or even a ghost), it's the house itself. Beautifully dilapidated, the house is a blatant parallel to the Sharpe siblings themselves, and as Thomas Sharpe tells Edith, it even breathes with the wind and bleeds red clay. As the Sharpe's souls and fortunes wither away, so does the house itself. Of course, the decaying old estate is a stock image in haunted house horror films and literature; in this case, it borrows a little too much from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". What sets Allerdale Hall apart from all the rest is its meticulously elegant art direction, the result of Brandt Gordon's interpretation of del Toro's signature style. Everything is lush and decadent, the costumes made of rich, heavy fabrics, the woods dark and luxurious, the rooms airy and elegant. Once we get a closer look, however, it's apparent that everything is in a process of slow decay: dust everywhere, dead flies lying on tables, a hole in the room which allows wind, leaves, and snow inside the main hall.
The ghosts in the film are as richly designed as the sets.They are played by actors (Doug Jones and Javier Botet) , whose performances are augmented with CGI in post production. They appear in bold red and black, and they have a skin-like texture that is reminiscent of the flesh that they once had, which grounds them in a strange kind of reality. They are grotesque and terrifying, but by reminding the audience that they were once human, they elicit the kind of empathy required to make their appearance truly effective.
The plot of Crimson Peak has a melodramatic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink flair that, although tremendous fun, materializes out of (almost) nowhere from the romance of the first half of the film. It's hard to say if the film would have been improved by omitting the first act entirely, but its slow pace and sickly sweet attitude did drag it down. It's certainly a mistake for del Toro to dispense so much information so early and so haphazardly. Several rather clumsy conversations between the Sharpes indicate that these two do have some kind of malevolent plan to steal Edith's inheritance, and it's no surprise when one of them appears to brutally murder Edith's father. We're never really allowed to participate in Edith's investigations, because we know far too much far too early. The dramatic irony del Toro employs lessens the blow of the real secret, and the revelation is much less shocking than intended.
Despite this, Crimson Peak's brutal conclusion is engaging and, most of all, great, campy fun, especially in contrast with the slow, emotional opening act. When Edith stabs Lucille with the ball point pen her father had given her, it's a gleefully satisfying act of revenge, as well as a not so subtle metaphor. Weapons are wielded (knives, shovels, cleavers), blood is spilled, and villains are vanquished, and result is extremely gratifying.
Crimson Peak is clearly a del Toro passion project, and it's a wonder that a studio consented to finance this decidedly non-commercial enterprise. Despite its self-indulgent melodrama and wild fluctuations in tone, Crimson Peak is a fun, imaginative, and absolutely gorgeous ride, and definitely warrants a viewing before it leaves theaters.
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