Asylum

I tend my Netflix queue as if it were a garden, moving things around, grouping DVDs into themes, and then putting something new at the top because I have to see it now. There are films that I add and they stay at the bottom, slowly working their way up the ladder, until finally they see the light of day and find themselves in my mailbox.

Just such a film is Asylum, a 2005 film that I added to my queue in, wait for it, 2005. I must have added it because I read the novel it's based on, and left it alone, and it moved upward, one position at a time. I always have the full 500 discs in my queue, so that's why it can take nine years to get to the top.

Asylum is based on a novel by Patrick McGrath that I read a long time ago. It was a decent book and it makes a decent movie. Set in a British mental hospital in the 1950s, it asks interesting questions on the difference between love and passion and obsession.

Natasha Richardson stars as wife of the new deputy something-or-other, Hugh Bonneville, at a posh hospital. The most tenured doctor, Ian McKellen, was passed over for the job, but maintains a polished charm. Richardson, bored, is entranced by one of the patients that is entrusted to work on her greenhouse. He is Martin Csokas, an intense sculptor who's in the booby hatch for killing his wife out of jealousy.

They are attracted to each other and begin an affair. When McKellen indicates that Csokas isn't being released anytime soon, he escapes, and it becomes apparent to everyone that Richardson had an inappropriate relationship with him. She starts taking trips to London to see him in his hideout, and eventually leaves Bonneville and their son for him.

This is one of those movies that a viewer can question the protagonist's actions, such as why a woman would throw away everything with a man who stabbed his wife to death, but these doubts are useless when trying to fathom the human mind. I dare say most of us have been obsessed with something enough that it caused us to make foolish decisions; Richardson's are just magnified. A tragedy late in the film finds her admitted to the asylum along with Csokas, but obsessions are hard to get rid of.

Asylum is stylishly directed by David Mackenzie. The performances by Richardson, Bonneville and Csokas are solid, but special attention is due to the great McKellen, who plays a man you never quite know what he's up to.