The Institute is sadly a mess of a movie and might leave the viewer seeking professional help to deal with the trauma of watching it. OK, so its not that bad but it could and should have been much better. It deals with the story of a young girl called Isabel checking herself into the Rosewood institute to deal with the grief of loosing both of her parents. The institute at first appears like a high end spa for very wealthy women but it soon becomes apparent that there are sinister characters and forces abusing some of the women who are patients at the hospital.
There are some quite well known names in the film like James Franco,Tim Blake Nelson, Eric Roberts, Lori Singer, Josh Duhamel and Pamela Anderson but for the most part these are cameos and the rest of the cast is relatively unknown. The dialogue is at times flat and at other times it is cringe-worthy (mentioning the healing process over and over) and the story loses momentum very quickly. The story also seems mashed up as if different movies have been mixed up. Is it a psychological thriller or a gory horror. There is pseudo philosophical discussion and there is nudity, whipping and secret orders which control everything. As if the film makers wanted to include as much as possible and yet ended up watering everything down.
Some of the other issues are for example that the main character exhibits no real grief even though she admitted herself to the hospital for this and other "latent maladies" such as curiosity and flights of fancy. The doctor treating her says there is nothing wrong with her and then proceeds to treat her and feed her tonics and medication together with therapy and brain washing. There are a few twists as is to be expected but in the end the movie still appears nonsensical. The fact that this film is supposedly based on real events makes it even worse as the film makers didn't even respect what the real people went through. Overall a complete mess.
There are some quite well known names in the film like James Franco,Tim Blake Nelson, Eric Roberts, Lori Singer, Josh Duhamel and Pamela Anderson but for the most part these are cameos and the rest of the cast is relatively unknown. The dialogue is at times flat and at other times it is cringe-worthy (mentioning the healing process over and over) and the story loses momentum very quickly. The story also seems mashed up as if different movies have been mixed up. Is it a psychological thriller or a gory horror. There is pseudo philosophical discussion and there is nudity, whipping and secret orders which control everything. As if the film makers wanted to include as much as possible and yet ended up watering everything down.
Some of the other issues are for example that the main character exhibits no real grief even though she admitted herself to the hospital for this and other "latent maladies" such as curiosity and flights of fancy. The doctor treating her says there is nothing wrong with her and then proceeds to treat her and feed her tonics and medication together with therapy and brain washing. There are a few twists as is to be expected but in the end the movie still appears nonsensical. The fact that this film is supposedly based on real events makes it even worse as the film makers didn't even respect what the real people went through. Overall a complete mess.