Comparing Jodie Foster's 1986 New Zealand based film with New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson's poisonously awful 2006 "remake" of King Kong, Foster is the clear-cut winner. The difference is that Foster's film is a quality movie. Mesmurized also compares well with Foster's own Panic Room or Flightplan. In Mesmurized the suspense is real, in the other two pictures the suspense is contrived and quickly forgotten. With rich local color recreating New Zealand in the 1880's this picture drives home the lack of opportunity and repressiveness women lived with a century ago. These days young women have a wealth of opportunity in choosing a mate, a sex partner, a career, everything. Here this girl goes from an orphanage into an arranged marriage, to live with a man she neither knows nor loves, with no apparent opportunity to either escape or change. This was called NORMAL. The somewhat abusive John Lithgow character is deep-down frightened of his wife, clueless as to how to communicate with a woman and establish a loving friendship. His brother George has no such problem, simply inviting Jodie "would you care to look at the dogs" -- doesn't sound like much, does it; but it amounts to an opening-up of friendship. The hard suspense lies in whether and how Foster will free herself from the repression. I well understand the negative reviews posted herein. Young people today have no knowledge of the harsh repressions of yesteryear, a time and place where paths to happiness dead-ended fast. God bless their ignorance; celebrate their joy.
Review of Mesmerized
