Madness takes its toll in Eliza Graves

If you have seen films like the classic One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, or American Horror Story: Asylum, the second season of the superb horror television series, you will love the old-fashioned nostalgia of Eliza Graves.

Eliza Graves, also released internationally as Stonehearst Asylum, is the latest film from Brad Anderson, who shocked the world with the psychological thriller The Machinist. Based on a short story by the legendary author Edgar Allan Poe entitled The System Of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, it tells of a young doctor fresh out of college (Jim Sturgess), who arrives at Stonehearst Asylum in search of an apprentice position, and is warmly welcomed by the superintendent, Dr Lamb (Ben Kingsley) and his 'staff', including Finn (David Thewlis) and a mesmerising woman by the name of Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale).

A series of unusual events

Edward is intrigued by Lamb's modern methods until a series of unusual events lead him to make a horrifying discovery, exposing Lamb's utopia and proving that nobody is who or what they appear to be. Be warned: don't know too much about what happens in the story as it will most definitely spoil the magnificent final act, in which all the secrets are turned inside out.

"Having done another movie set in an asylum, it felt like a good segue and familiar territory," says Anderson."The period element was something that was very attractive to me because I'd never done a period film before. Also, it is very loosely based on an Edgar Allan Poe story. I have always loved Poe and at one point I was going to do a story about him. So, thematically, Eliza Graves connected with a lot of interests of mine." For Anderson it was a difficult story to take on and to cleanly and succinctly categorise.

"It is a gothic love story, horror, thriller, suspense and drama - it fits all these groups. I like the notion that no one is who they seem to be. Everyone is playing a role in some way and for whatever reason and every character has moments of revealing their true nature."

"It is also a very heart-wrenching, yearning love story about a guy who has simply fallen in love with a woman and has travelled through hell and high water to find and convince her that he is worthy of her love, even though she thinks of herself as being crazy. The love story is tied into the gothic horror aspect of the film, which is quite an interesting combination."

Love of gothic fiction

For screenwriter Joe Gangemi, the film reflects his lifelong love of gothic fiction, as well as my interest in the history of medicine. Originally pitched to my agents as 'A Hammer film made by Merchant and Ivory', it's my hope that with Poe's pedigree, the stellar cast and romantic subplot, Eliza Graves will appeal to a wider audience than might normally see a genre picture."

"I've always been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe and felt an affinity for his work," says Gangemi. "In 1998, I stumbled upon this lesser known Poe story, which was only three or four pages long, and it was something I'd never heard of before. This was before you could get information easily on the internet, so I found a copy of a book with this not often anthologised story. I read it and it's not one of Poe's better pieces. However, there was the kernel of an idea in there that was fascinating to me; about a young man entering an environment where he suddenly found up was down and down was up, and he has to navigate through. That is the piece that got its hooks into my imagination and inspired me to write the story."

Ganhemi has crafted a great screenplay that truly celebrates gothic horrors. It was his journey into this amazing story that results in a great cinematic experience.

"Research is a big part of the gestation period for me," says Ganhemi, who immersed himself into the world of the story and creating an 'original story' by reading everything from poetry by asylum patients and letters from people committed to asylums in that era, to reading the memoirs of the physicians.

Compassion

One of the major themes in the film for Gangemi is compassion. "What was on my mind when I wrote the script was a question that I do not have an answer to. What is the limit of compassion? You can have the best intentions and you can try to create a utopia. What happens when the utopia runs up against the hard realities of human nature, the practicalities of keeping the heat on, keeping people fed and stopping people from harming one another? I think that is the challenge that Silas Lamb runs into and is ultimately destroyed by."

"It was definitely my design in writing to play a game with the audience. Taking them down a path in one scene and then completely reversing their sympathies in the next so they get pulled back and forth throughout. I like that tension in a narrative and I think that makes it fun and suspenseful - it's also engaging and challenging. What we are really benefiting from is two legendary actors cast in the roles (Sir Ben Kingsley and Sir Michael Caine), because they can bring shading and levels of ambiguity and, moment to moment, shifts in sympathy that deepen that back and forth conflict.

"Ultimately, I hope the audience don't see Lamb as a villain but see him as a tragic hero who is undone by his own idealism. At the same time, I hope they see Salt, as a complex character, himself a prisoner of his times and the way asylum medicine was practiced in the 19th century. I think if we keep people guessing on that level we will really have done something a little special."

How does the cast view their journey into madness?

"It's spooky, it's unsettling, it's romantic - it has got quite a lot going for it," says Beckinsale, who plays a woman who is diagnosed as a fairly classic Victorian hysteric, which means she is subject to nervous attacks and fits, and she is there for various other reasons that surface in the story.

"This film isn't about heroes and villains - it's not black and white. It is about perspective," says, Sturgess, who plays the young Oxford graduate Dr Lamb. "From the research I did, I realised that these places where not like that at all - they were pretty fascinating places actually. They were huge in scale with all these interesting characters, with so many different problems. That is such an intriguing backdrop for a film, particularly a romance. It is one of the great appeals of this movie; you are given the keys to go inside a world that you don't see on film very often."

Exhilarating and exciting

"This film offers you so much. It's exhilarating and exciting. It is psychological and intriguing. It has big ideas about mental health; I think everybody has some sort of interest in mental illness and madness. What makes somebody mad? Who draws the line and says who is mad and who isn't? We look back on the 19th century and say they were completely ignorant to mental health issues, but we are still scrambling around in the dark today, so it's a really fascinating subject matter for a film. It is action packed, romantic, slightly disturbing, psychological and it makes you think. It's the maddest love story you will ever see."

Says Michael Caine, who plays a doctor who is quite sadistic in his methods: "Fans should come expecting to have the living daylights frightened out of them! I'm only working on the movie and the last scene I just did with the lunatics was more than a little scary. There are no real lunatics in this movie, they are only actors, but they are very good actors!"

For Kingsley, the film "is that extraordinary, savage and passionate look at our wonderful minds that is so beautiful and intelligent. It will give the audience a thrilling evening at the cinema because it is wonderful as a portrait - like a Renoir painting coming to life."

Eliza Graves is now showing at selected cinemas nationwide. If you are looking for a great cinematic experience in Cape Town, visit Nu Metro's luxurious Scene cinema at the Waterfront where you can enjoy a glass of wine while watching the film to calm the nerves. You'll need it!

Read more about Eliza Graves and other new film releases at www.writingstudio.co.za