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 've never been particularly impressed with people who sail
around the world on a boat, in a hot air balloon, or fly a plane, by themselves
in an effort to set some record. The notion of such "greatness"
escapes me, probably because I was raised in an environment that didn't allow
for such gratuitous endeavors. As they say, the rich and privileged can afford
their eccentricities, and only a man who doesn't have to worry about holding
down a 9-to-5 job can afford to run around in a hot air balloon for months at a
time.
But I digress. "Visitors" stars Radha Mitchell ("Phone
Booth") as Georgia Perry, a woman attempting to travel around the
world on a yacht all by herself. After months on the high seas, Georgia starts
to experiment the inevitable cabin fever brought on by isolation and a lack of
human contact. She not only starts communicating
telepathically with her cat Taco, but also starts getting visits from dead
relatives -- including her mother, who died while Georgia was away. And are
there really pirates after her, or is it all just a part of her fevered imagination? For
that matter, is her boyfriend back home really trying to sabotage her quest?
While my lack of admiration for idiot philanthropists who
does kooky stunts based on the virtue of their wealthy eccentricities remains
firmly intact, it's not correct to assign these attributes to
Georgia. The screenplay by Everett De Roche seems just as concern with Georgia
the person, her unresolved family issues, and her personal motivations as it is
with the ghost elements that show themselves very early on. There is Georgia's
guilt for her father's accident, which has left him in a wheelchair, and her
unspoken rivalry with boyfriend Luke (Dominic Purcell), whose own
record-breaking attempt came up short.
Also, Georgia is by no means rich. The yacht belongs to her
father and she is forced to seek sponsorship from a cosmetic company that, in
turn, wants to rename her boat. Georgia informs them
that this is bad luck, but alas money doesn't grow on trees, and a trip around
the world costs money. Radha Mitchell, the most viable Australian
movie star since Hollywood tried to force Heath Ledger down our throats, makes
for an intriguing heroine. Mitchell is more than capable of playing paranoid,
strong, and vulnerable all at the same time. She did it just as well in "Pitch
Black" and "When
Strangers Appear".
But of course deep characterization and pathos is not the
reason anyone will watch "Visitors" for the simple reason that the movie is billed as a
psychological horror and ghost story. Is the film scary? Not really, but I can
say that it does have its creepy moments and even one or two Boo Scares, many of
them courtesy of Georgia's mother (Susannah York), who
committed suicide after Georgia put her in a home. York's first appearance is
the movie's most effective moment, as the dead woman emerges out of the darkness
to confront her daughter, who she blames for her death.
Alas, director Richard Franklin drops the ball when he
allows Ray Barrett, playing Georgia's father, to pop up on the boat in order to
give his daughter a pep talk. The atmosphere and dread created by York almost
entirely vanishes after this point, replaced by what can only be described as
weak attempts at suspense. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it's a hard
to re-capture it. The daily visitations by the ghosts instead become physical manifestations
of problems associated with the boat. Also, the use of ghost
pirates didn't work in "The
Fog" or "Pirates
of the Caribbean" and they certainly don't work here. What is it about
ghost pirates that make them so...lame?
As human drama, "Visitors" works. Even as a
psychological thriller, there are some merits to be found. The script by De
Roche does some good things, but fails to scare anyone who isn't easily spooked
by dead moms appearing to their daughters wearing white robes. Richard Franklin
makes good use of shadows and darkness, but the film's mood is sometimes
hampered by the very obvious fact that Georgia's yacht is always sitting
perfectly still on a soundstage. And perhaps making the hauntings take
place in the daytime as well as nighttime isn't the way to go. It's a little
hard to be scared of a ghost when there's bright sunlight everywhere.
The casting of Radha Mitchell might just be the one thing
that makes "Visitors" worthwhile. She certainly gives an excellent
performance, and looks very sane even when she's communicating telepathically
with Taco the cat. Dominic Purcell, the ex-star of the cancelled Fox show
"John Doe", has a pretty thick Australian accent. Not that it matters,
because Purcell's
character doesn't have much to do except talk to Georgia via radio from his
office. The script fails to offer up any real ambiguity about his
jealousy toward Georgia, or the fact that he's doing more than just shaking
hands with the cosmetic company's representative.
"Visitors" is worth seeing, but one shouldn't
expect too much. At just 85 minutes, it's very well paced, although there are
some questionable uses of CGI. And of course Radha Mitchell is quite fetching in
a bikini, even when she's battling lame ghost pirates.
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