Warning: This review contains spoilers and some adult conversation that may cause itching and burning sensations, specifically in the ocular area. Proceed with caution.

Blindness

Rated R: For disturbing violence, disturbing sexuality, and disturbing images. (Did I mention it’s disturbing? Because yes.)

Starring: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael Garcia Bernal, Maury Chaykin (!), and Danny Glover.

IMDb Rating: 7.2
RottenTomatoes: 42% Rotten

Sample Review:

A stark, uncompromising look at a dark part of human existence exposed when the most basic sense is taken away.

Obviously there is a fair bit of discrepancy between the entirely user-driven IMDb rating and the RottenTomatoes meter, which is based completely on critics’ rating. I’m not entirely sure why, but I’ll venture a guess that it has something to do with the way this film was marketed.

The trailer for Blindness was spooky. It promised a world-wide epic disaster film on par with The Happening or The Stand. It was neither of those things. Blindness is a deeply resonant character study that comments on the degradation of a society due to hysteria and social control. I equate it more to the film Children of Men. Yes, at times the film is spooky, but the discomfort comes not from the affliction itself, but from the animalistic behavior of those who suffer from it.

So the movie isn’t a horror or a thriller, though there is tension throughout. It begins on a relatively normal day in a normal city, where a man becomes caught in traffic…and goes blind. But this isn’t the typical darkness that most people attribute to blindness. Instead, we get a glimpse of his perspective, and are greeted by a milky white film that permeates his vision. Immediately, concerned citizens flock to help him, and one in particular drives him home, before promptly stealing the blind man’s car. This theme of being taken advantage of becomes a thread throughout the rest of the film.

The man’s wife takes him to the optometrist (Ruffalo) who is flummoxed; he has never been exposed to this kind of instant white blindness. Except that he has, because the next morning he wakes up and cannot see.

His wife, Julianne Moore, shows no symptoms of the apparent disease that is causing cases of blindness to spring up all over the city, and accompanies her husband to be quarantined under the false pretense that she is blind as well.

The disease is a quiet one, infecting almost everyone who comes in contact with the carrier. The CDC swiftly dispatches to clean up the mess before it can spread further, collecting the carriers and depositing them in an abandoned hospital. Soon, the ward is crowded and locked, guarded twenty-four hours a day to ensure that no one escapes. Now, the blind are no longer locked up for precaution…they are prisoners.

This is when the film takes a turn from intriguing to down-right depressing. The ward of the blind becomes a festering, putrid place. Though the doctor’s wife attempts to retain order and keep the place clean, she is merely one person in a sea of confusion. She maintains the deceit, attempting to keep the peace.

A group of trouble-makers in Ward 3 declares themselves the rulers of the food supply and demand money and goods. Soon, The King of Ward 3 (Bernal) goes a step further, demanding women be sent up in exchange for food. Apparently, the brutal (though blurry and confused) group rape scene that ensues affected American audiences in a profound way. The boards on the IMDb are full of commentary about how uncomfortable the scene made audiences.

I was affected by the scene, but not in an uncomfortable way. It felt, at its core, entirely realistic, and cruelly sad. Without this scene, I felt the film would have lacked the power of simply how animalistic those trapped in this enclosed Hell had become.

The performances were very good in the film, especially from Julianne Moore. Her anguish and despair at being the only sighted person trying to care for the blind masses is palpable, and her heartbreak runs deep. I was especially surprised to see Maury Chaykin (the suicidal General from the first few minutes of Dances with Wolves) in a hilariously vile role.

If you enjoyed Children of Men, and its bleak, dystopian view of society, then this film is for you. While Blindness is not the caliber of the aforementioned, it certainly causes a lot of thought about the world and your fellow human beings. And sometimes those are the best films.