Dragonfly film review

certificate_12

DRAGONFLY

It's difficult to understand why Kevin Costner's star has dimmed so much. He's still the same earnest, if predictable actor he's always been, but somewhere between Dances With Wolves and now, the love died. Picking too many turkeys like 3000 Miles To Graceland and The Postman might have something to do with it. Things have reached a point where you almost feel sorry for the man. Dragonfly certainly wont restore the lustre.

The success of The Sixth Sense has triggered a cinematic revival in the paranormal, ranging from the enigmatic Donnie Darko to the spinechilling Mothman Prophecies. With its story of a husband being contacted by the spirit of his recently deceased wife, Dragonfly offers a more romantic spin. The inexplicable has always been a source of fascination, but there is nothing fascinating about the contrived and shallow Dragonfly. Forget The Sixth Sense, this should be called The Non Sense.

Costner plays Joe Darrow, an emergency doctor in a Chicago hospital. His pregnant wife Emily (Susanna Thompson), a "doctor, a healer, a credit to the human race," is working with children in Venezuela when their school bus plunges off the road into the river below. Her body is never found and a distraught Darrow ("I'm a lion without a heart") immerses himself in his work. Soon after he begins to sense his wife's presence with numerous dragonfly encounters, a creature she considered her personal totem as it resembled a birthmark on her shoulder.

He becomes more convinced of his wife's desire to communicate when two gravely ill children at the hospital claim to have spoken to her during recent near death experiences. A recurring wiggly cross motif and a message to meet "inside the rainbow", are seen by Darrow as further proof. As his obsession increases, so does the concern of his friends and workmates, who begin to question his sanity.

Director Tom Shadyac enjoyed comedic success with Ace Ventura and The Nutty Professor, but Patch Adams revealed his inclination towards unapologetic sentiment. It's a taste given full rein here as Darrow mourns his loss. Such emotion would feel less manipulative if it came from a character with more depth and resonance. Too much of Dragonfly concerns itself with the manifestation of his wife's spirit and too little is devoted to establishing Darrow as someone we're remotely interested in.