“DANIKA” (2006)

Starring: Marisa Tomei, Craig Bierko, Regina Hall, Nicki Prian & Hannah Marks
Written by Joshua Leibner
Directed by Ariel Vromen

Polly Staffle Rating: ****

Physical ailments are so much easier to deal with than mental ones. When dealing with the physical, the wound can usually be spotted and doctored. If you cut your hand while entering an elevator, most likely you will feel pain. If not, there’s always the visual of blood to cue you in that something is wrong. If this doesn’t do the trick, others around you will inform you. Once you are aware of the problem, you must decide if you can deal with the infliction yourself or if you need to seek medical attention. I know it’s not always that simple, but for the most part it is true. Mental suffering is an entirely different beast. Most that are suffering don’t even know they are. We’re supposed to be able to trust our brains. When it is sending false messages, how is one to know? Many that realize there is a problem do nothing about it. We’ve been conditioned to look down on that type of sickness, so many tend to suffer in silence. Once someone decides to seek help, the problem can very easily be misdiagnosed or overlooked because there is no way to completely pinpoint it. Ariel Vromen’s Japanese-horror influenced “Danika” takes you inside the head of an individual dealing with such a situation.

From the outside, Danika (played by Marisa Tomei) is living the American Dream. She’s a hot soccer mom of three kids with a loving husband. She lives in a nice house and has a good job crunching numbers at a bank. But inside, this MILF suffers paralyzing anxiety. She struggles with what is real and what isn’t. A loving mother and wife, she wants what is best for her family and hopes to keep them intact as a unit. It seems the harder she tries, the more everyone pulls away from her. The children are becoming typically rebellious as they get older and Danika’s grip on reality seems to unravel more and more. Her youngest boy trespasses into a neighbor’s yard at all hours to go for swims. Her teenage boy brings home sluts and has unprotected promiscuous sex in her home. Her preteen daughter asks inappropriate questions because of adult oriented reading material she will not stop reading even when mom throws it in the trash. Danika doesn’t know what to do with her children. She is overwhelmed.

After an incident at her job, things get to be too much for Danika to take and she stops working. Everyone hopes less stress will help her function better. It doesn’t do much good because it was never the job that brought her down. She needs assistance, but no one quite understands her and doctors are absolutely no help.

Danika has terrifying visions, horrific hallucinations and lives her life in fear. Every morning when she wakes up, she tells herself everything will be okay. She knows it is a lie, but she pretends so she can get on with her day. Paranoid to everything around her, while driving the one’s she loves to the brink of insanity, Danika begins to think she sees into the future. Among her many chilling visions, the fragile woman is haunted by a missing child Lizzie, who Danika may have seen the day she was abducted. Does Danika have the ability to saves lives by seeing things before they happen? Is the past the key to her visions? Is her husband involved in some way? Is someone after her and her family? Is her family purposely trying to make her feel as if she is going crazy? Though the film is surreal and raises a number of questions at times, everything ties together with an intense finale.

My jaw has never dropped during a movie before. People say that all the time – “my jaw dropped.” It’s never happened to me. “Danika” made my jaw drop. Of course, being able to evoke such a response doesn’t mean you have a good film on your hands. But “Danika” is a hell of a movie. It’s a brilliant rollercoaster with an unforgettable ending that doesn’t just have the ride stop, but instead sends you flying off the tracks straight into a brick wall. The credits roll and you are left alone with your thoughts to ponder what you just saw while the disturbing images haunt your nightmares. This psychological thriller takes the super natural exploits of “The Sixth Sense” to an all new level and manipulates our perceptions like “High Tension” for a powerful combination that has the viewer creeped out, freaked out and intrigued.

This was my favorite film at CineVegas. I think a lot of people will appreciate it. It’s sort of a cross between “The Butterfly Effect” and “The Grudge” so audiences should embrace it fairly easy. I read that Universal Pictures has picked it up, but I haven’t seen anything official. I just hope it isn’t changed too much by the studio and they release it as an R and don’t wuss out with a PG-13 rating. There are several scenes I’m not sure you can pull off as effectively if they are cut. I mean, a decapitated head is a decapitated head. Besides, it’s not like a youngster will fully grasp the films subtext. I’m sure some adults might have trouble understanding it.

I’ve never been that big of a Tomei fan, but she was great as the lead. This film obviously came from a brilliant script by Joshua Leibner, but she still carries the project giving us terror, numerous full blown panic attacks, desperation, helplessness and hopelessness. I know “My Cousin Vinnie” fans will crucify me for this, but this is her best work yet. “Scary Movie” franchise alums Regina Hall and Craig Bierko are here providing serious support as Danika’s psychologist and husband. Two people with brief roles to look out for are Hannah Marks and James Avery. Marks is a young Scream Queen in the making, having already been in Charles Band’s “Doll Graveyard.” She plays the eight-year-old missing girl Lizzie. Avery plays Danika’s neighbor or least I think it’s him. I can’t find anything to verify that and the film’s closing credits were extremely tiny because the version I saw was a just completed work in progress according to director Ariel Vromen. Avery played Philip Banks on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and seems to have lost some weight since then. To quote something reminiscent of what Will Smith would’ve said to him on the show, “Looking good Uncle Phil.”

- CCF, July 2006