Good concept, poorly executed.

Don't Believe the Hype

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

dark. cold. an impossible love story.and large doses of sensuality. and the revenge. a film who reminds old thrillers and who, against the not best sigh, it is powerful, convincing, dramatic, bitter and, maybe, great.because its themes are familiar. because madness has a seductive portrait. for the actors and for few parts of story. for a form of romanticism who , far to be only convincing, it is more than dramatic. for the taste of atmosphere. for the choices and for the decisions. and for the end. a film about happiness. in precise manner.

I was fascinated by this story about the thin line between "madness" and obsession (which anyone might experience), and the idea that falling in love with a dangerous person can lead you into tragic events, unless you are brave enough to choose a different path. Tragic characters nearly always make some mistake that then leads them into an inexorable downward spiral, and this was no exception. I felt that Natasha Richardson's Stella was a tragic character and her liaison with Edgar was a dangerous step - once she became involved with him, she was effectively trapped. The parallels between the asylum and the people imprisoned there physically and Stella's imprisonment in her marriage were very effective and the tension of events which were quite unexpected made this a compelling tale. I was suspicious of the motives of Ian McKellen's character right from the start, and I believe that his intentions were manipulative and selfish throughout. Stella and Edgar acted according to what they thought was their own free will and yet somewhere they were being controlled. It was a scary insight into how powerless people could be when falling into the clutches of mental asylums, either as a patient or someone on the periphery. I recommend this thriller with the warnings that others have made over the sexual content which is essential to portray the obsessive and passionate relationship at its centre.

Natasha Richardson has really been superb, her performance is in my opinion the surprise of the film; not that she wasn't credited as a valid actress, but her role is played perfectly - she's also surrounded by an excellent cast - and is probably the key point to this gloomy and fascinating story. She dominates the screen by acting as a repressed English wife living in the Fifties and throwing her life out for a crazy love affair. Her personality is depicted by many mood changes and of course by a dose of madness and fits the provocative and intentionally shocking atmosphere. Sex scenes are deliberately strong, somewhat primitive, and saying th finale is disturbing is an understatement.

(There are Spoilers) Beautifully photographed in and around the English and Wales countryside "Asylum" starts off innocently enough with psychiatrist Max Rapheal, Hugh Bonneville, getting the job as deputy administrator of this Victorian era mental institution outside of London. Having his ravishingly beautiful wife Stella and 12 year-old son Charile, Natasha Richardson & Gus Lewis, come along with him Dr. Rapheal quickly rises to the top taking over the day to day operations of the institution with the chief administrator old man Jack Straffen, Joss Ackland, announcing his sudden retirement.Everything at first goes smoothly with Max in charge even though his top medical man at the asylum Dr. Peter Cleave, Ian Mckellen, is a bit resentful of him by feeling that he's the man to run the place not Max being that he's been there your years and Max just for a few days. the bitter Dr Cleave may very well have unconsciously let things get out of hand later in the movie with Max's wife Stella and this dangerous inmate convicted wife murderer and artist Edgar Stark, Marton Csokas.Stella feeling that her stuffed shirted and very proper, when it comes to having wild and crazy sex with her, husband Max isn't up to the job of satisfying her most deepest and sinful desires slowly gravities to the very hot for her and earthy, in the sex department, Edger. Stella's uncontrollable desires for the sexy convicted murderer leads to a number of almost unbearable, for the audience to watch without without feeling that they tuned into an X-rated skin-flick, and wild sexual encounters. This leads Stella to leave her husband and young child and shack up with the later fugitive ,from justice and the mental institution, Edger Stark in this deserted downtown London loft.Edger now free and feeling that Stella is addicted to his both talents as an artist and animal-like magnetism begins to treats her with both contempt and insensitivity in being foolish enough to put up with him. Stella for her part takes all the punches and blows that Edger has to offer, or throw at, her but later falls for Edgers, as well as her, roommate at the loft the caring and sensitive Nick, Sean Harris, who want's to be part of a sexual acrobatic manaja twa, with him as the anchorman, with both Stella and Edger. This betrayal on Nick part leads Edgers to savagely beat him up, and then throwing Nick out of the loft altogether, together with Stella for daring to play around behind him back when he isn't looking.It's later when Stella is rescued from Edger by the London Police that an enraged Edger becomes more and more aggressive and tracks her down all the way to this little town in Wales, where Stella was living with both Max & Charlie, only to be captured again by the Wales Police and put back in the mental institution, from where Edger escaped from, now run by Dr. Cleave. Stella meanwhile is slowly suffering from a mental breakdown that will in he end lead her to let her son Charlie drown in a nearby lake, during a school field trip, with her who's supposed to look after him just sitting there on the rocks and ignoring his cries for help, until it was to late, as he went under for the third time.With her now being a totally destroyed woman Stella herself is institutionalized in the asylum and Stella's only hope now is to continue living is to rekindle her relationship with not her kind and caring husband Max, who had since divorced her. Meanwhile that vicious and manipulating psycho Edger Stark, who himself has been committed to the same place as Stella, has gone completely insane, or mute, in his refusing to talk or communicate with anyone there.With Dr. Cleave pulling the stings he not only tells Stella that her lover Edger is also a patient at his institution, which was totally unprofessional for him to do, he also tells, the now very eager to meet Edger, Stella that he'll be at the annual dance sponsored by the asylum and she can be his dance partner. This was a sick and cruel lie or joke on Dr. Cleaves part that, if that's what his reason was in the first place, instead of helping Stella get over her depression it drove her over the top and lead to the tragedy that happened to her at the end of the movie.