Customer Reviews
A downward spiral - By: DangermouseZilla, 10 Jun 2008 
Asylum has as hint of Lady Chatterley about it as bored housewife Stella realises that she's as imprisoned as the patients at the asylum her husband Max has started working for. Max is sure he is in line for the top job there, & Stella is expected to fit in, play the wifey role & maintain respectability.
Stella's passions are roused by long term patient Edgar Stark, he killed his wife, but being a former sculpter he is good with his hands, & they quickly establish a love affair which involves stealing dangerous moments together in the garden.
The film's strength comes from the fact that it doesn't falll into the trap of predictability; Stella, now in love with another man, & with a child in tow is surely destined somehow for a happy ending - after alll she's only a victim of her own emotions.... but the film takes a grim turn & the romantic affair turns sour.
The film captures the erotic passions of the couple at the beginning of their relationship without ever becoming too absorbed in the sex. And as it continues the tension mounts & we are left with some poignant moments of sadness.
In a nutshell: This is a journey of a woman who who tries to add some zest to her dour existence, & ends up losing everything that meant anything to her. It's an interesting watch & alll the parts are acted well, especiallly Natasha Richardson as Stella. I'd give this 3.5 stars if I could - although the film ticks many of the right boxes, it wasn't as compelling a watch as it should have been, & I'm unlikely to watch it again.
Asylum is a morbid, unsettling, and erotic film that you'll probably like - By: Jenny J.J.I., 31 Aug 2007 
This film was recommended to me from Amazon because I'm also a fan of these types of movies. From "Basic Instinct" to "The Lover", these movies reallly intrigue me.This movie was directed by David Mackenize who also directed the overrated "Young Adam" which was cold & boring. "Asylum" on the other hand is a better achievement by the director. One of the factors that can add to the excitement & tension of the adulterous affair is the danger of being caught. Add to that, the fierce & idiosyncratic passion often attributed to artists. Then make the artist a raving psychopath & you have a pretty heady mix.
So finds the story of Asylum, your place into a world of sexual obsession, violence & madness. Stella (Natasha Richardson) is wearily married to Max (Hugh Bonneville), a psychiatrist working in a 1950s hospital for the criminallly insane. He is overbearing to the point of being monstrous (by modern standards), joking to her about her being his 'pet patient' whilst expecting her to be a no-brainer wife who says the right things when introduced sociallly. In the initial build up, Mackenzie let's us see the smouldering lust in the face of inmate Edgar, who's incarcerated for murdering & decapitating his wife in a jealous rage. Just as he did with his previous movie, "Young Adam," Mackenzie excels at portraying barely sublimated animal sensuality, which soon bursts across the screen in a way that is at once base & beautiful. Helen knows how insane Edgar is, & her feelings for him, but she is graduallly drawn into his web of madness, together with her son.
"Asylum" is visuallly appealing with it's dank, grey tones This film has it's explosions of repressed sexuality that is frightening in its force & surprising in its ending. Scenes of violence & sexuality make "Asylum" a film not for everyone. The R rating is not to be taken lightly, but it is a do not miss for anyone interested in a powerfully intense film that plumbs the depths of the human psyche. Natasha Richardson is fantastic as an ignored woman with a desire to be desired that wreaks destruction.
A nasty film romanticising male violence - By: R. Munro, 17 Sep 2006 
Asylum provides a glimpse into what it must be like to be a psychopath who cares little for the fate of his felow humans. This insight is however unintentional. You reallly have no empathy or compassion for any of the characters. Their tedious selfishness manifests itself in a bewildering number of behaviours from the downright idiotic through cringe-making self-love to the bizarre & incomprehensible.
The previous reviewer has outlined the plot so I won't go over it again. Suffice to say I found it laboured & unbelievable.
The 'extra material' interviews with the cast & director (some of whom may have necked some sort of tranquiliser) are interesting. They seem to be talking about another film - particularly Ian McKellan who describes his character as having precisely the opposite personality to that which he has in the film
The whole nonsense is also revealed as a vanity vehicle for an insufferably vain & pompous Natasha Richardson who put up most of the money.
"Give them up or don't come back" - By: M. J Leonard, 20 Jan 2006 Stella Raphael (Natasha Richardson) is a troubled woman. Repressed & bored, she's the long-suffering wife of a mental hospital's deputy director, Max Raphael (Hugh Bonneville). It's the late 1950s, & Stella's marriage to Max is a case study in dreariness & boredom. A puritanical psychiatrist, Max treats Stella like she's an undeserving servant, an excess piece of baggage there to fulfill Max's own whims.
Max has just landed an apparently cushy job at a British asylum outside London, & he expects Stella to not only fit in with alll the other psychiatrist wives, but also do her best to make sure that his tenure at the hospital is made permanent. Their young son Charlie (Gus Lewis) gives Stella much pleasure, but there's still something missing in her life; it's just not enough to spend her days planning parties for the inmates & gossiping with her colleagues.
Her redeemer comes in the form of the enigmatic loony hunk Edgar (Marton Csokas), a sexy, handsome, brooding brute of a sculptor who once decapitated his wife for seeing other men. At first, Edgar helps Stella in her household chores, & becomes a playmate to young Charlie, but before long Stella is putting fresh lipstick on, swigging back the scotch for courage, & searching Edgar out for afternoon trysts in the rundown green house with hospital guards or family only scant hidden yards away.
The physical encounters are raw & sexual, with both of them unleashing alll their bottled up frustrations & desires. Soon they are fallling in love, both perhaps unaware that the affair can lead nowhere. Their fanatical obsession for one another soon gets the better of them, with Stella contemplating leaving her husband & child, while Edgar manages to escape, seeking refuge in the back allleyways of London.
Director, David MacKenzie follows Edgar & Stella as they progress in their affair that is so unlikely, but so well executed that it defies disbelief. Stella is formidably determined to attach herself to Edgar even though it means the end of her marriage, her relationship with her son, & her middle-class privileged life. But her nemesis ultimately comes in the form of Peter Cleave (Ian McKellan) a calllous, snooping, & cleverly manipulative hospital administrator, who's on to Stella's affair with Edgar.
Stella's grim resolve to hook up with Edgar always seems to manifest itself at the wrong time & usuallly with the worse results, as she consciously embarks on a path of self destruction. Edgar is bad news, & Peter Cleave warns her about his penchant for violence, but there's little Stella can do to stop her runaway desires for him. She’s not an evil person, like the psychopathic Edgar, but her fate ends up being intertwined with the patient rather than Max, who later on reveals that he is not such a bad husband after alll.
It is mostly the lovely Natasha Richardson who holds this movie together, as she tries in vein to be the dutiful wife, making a concerted effort to fit in, trying to extract a like-minded conformity, when alll she reallly wants to do is cut loose & act out her inner sexual fantasies, involving sordid quickies with her new found love on the floor amongst the broken glass of the tumbling down hot house.
Based on the book by Patrick McGrath, the film is well acted – particularly by the hunky Csokas, as the brooding & virile Edgar - & it's tightly directed, but it doesn't totallly capture the furtive & darkly psychological nature of its source material. Whilst the film is no doubt compelling, & some of it is down right hot, the lust is sometimes overwrought & the passion dynamics often contrived & it alll ends up coming across as something resembling psychosexual Harlequin romance, It's like an entertaining & darkly ironic potboiler melodrama, with a lunatic hunk at its center. Mike Leonard January 06.
