In The Eye, Jessica Alba plays Sydney Wells, a concert violinist that’s been blind since she was a child. She goes into the hospital for a cornea transplant and all seems to go well, until she watches through blurry eyes her hospital room bunkmate being led away by some kind of shadow man. Sydney thinks she’s just adjusting to life as one of the sighted, and she sees a therapist (Alessandro Nivola) to help her, but of course he can’t help her because Sydney is being haunted by ghostly images given to her by her donor: a Mexican psychic.
The Eye is based on a Hong Kong movie called Jian Gui, which, as you may have guessed, means The Eye. The fact that movie fans on internet boards are arguing about whether the original film was Chinese or Japanese should probably give you some indication of how interesting the actual film is. I’ve seen this movie before. You’ve seen this movie before. Sydney sees things, people think she’s crazy, her friends and family think she’s crazy only to be vindicated once all the clues have been put together. I can write this thing in my sleep, and come to think of it, I might have.
Co-Directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud create good atmosphere, which is honestly the only reason why this thing is elevated beyond a single star. (Well, that and a shameless plug for The Dresden Files TV show produced by the same studio.) The mood is good, but the source of all this supernatural strife is pretty mundane when you see it. I wanted to see more of these Shadow Men, which is a legend in many cultures. It felt like they should have been more key to the plot, like the meowing ghost boy in The Grudge. Annoying? Sure, but a memorable character to be sure.
Another thing that bothered me was Sydney’s blindness and recovery. I read somewhere somebody saying that Jessica Alba beat Ben Affleck for the worst representation of a blind person in a movie trophy, referring to Affleck’s role as blind hero Daredevil. Well I don’t know about that, certainly it’s hard for sighted people to pretend they have none, but I think Alba does a passable job. That’s not a ringing endorsement I know, but I wish the film could have spared a bit of time to show Sydney dealing with her new normal. But I guess that probably was too much to ask and when you see the cop out ending you’ll probably understand why.
Actually, forget seeing the ending, because the trailer blows it. Forget seeing the movie because I don’t think it’s worth your time. The Grudge, The Ring and their sequels kind of milked this deliberately staid and spooky type of metaphorical ghost story to death, pun intended. I just wasn’t feeling it. The Eye is uninspired, unengaging and frankly, ill-timed. Wait for the video, or better yet, wait for the video with the dead lady crawling out of the well.
