Movie Review: The Host (2013)

If ever there was a movie one should read the instruction manual for, The Host would be it.

In a beautiful starry sky, a narrator informs that the environment of Earth is at peace, it is perfect; but, it is no longer Earth. Humans have been invaded. When a human becomes a host, a silver ring appears around the irises upon complete attachment, and the previous occupant of that body, the human soul, is gone

Full stop.

By the end of the film, I felt I had just viewed Invasion of the Body Snatchers 2013. The film attempts to show a sympathetic body snatcher while telling a story of forever love, resistance, and perseverance. It dies trying. It is a galactic conceit that the alien souls have colonized twelve planets and yet never considered that hosts would care about their presence or eradication. While the host mind is considered erased, the memories, knowledge, and sensations remain for each soul to rifle through at will. Which is a chilling concept of a completely depersonalized culture. Pathologically without empathy, except the soul culture as a whole abhors violence, lies, and discord. And yet, the souls profess no great loss over human life, insisting at the beginning of the film that they only want to make earth better. Instead, it’s the Borg, cleaned up and taught some manners.

Stilted dialogue, incredibly difficult pacing, plot detail that’s left to conjecture or simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, and a false sense of suspense gives pause when considering all the genres this movie has been listed under: Drama, Horror, Mystery & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Action, Adventure, and Romance. The only two that survive are Drama and Science Fiction & Fantasy, and only because of actual content. “Choose to believe. Choose to fight. Choose to love” is the banner message this film wants to send. A message that got chewed up and spat out.

The humans have seen the change to a person the alien brings. Those who want to remain themselves run. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan, City of Ember) was one of those who ran after her father committed suicide rather than be taken (and left his two kids for the taking. Ouch). Ultimately, Melanie, rather than be captured when cornered by the soul’s version of police, the Seekers, jumps to her presumed death to protect her lover, Jared (Max Irons, Red Riding Hood), and her younger brother, Jaime (Chandler Canterbury).  The soul doctors, Healers, make Melanie’s body whole again before inserting the new inhabitant.  The alien souls look much like sparkly, white fairy centipedes who reside  in cool silver eggs. This glowing pixie centipede is Wanderer. And she’s in control of Melanie’s body. In this case, however, Wanderer discovers Melanie’s soul hasn’t gone anywhere

Upon discovery of each other, Melanie speaks through an overly loud voice-over that indicates it’s Melanie inside Wanderer’s skull. However, in order for Wanderer to talk back, she has to speak out loud. Granted, that’s so us movie viewers can discern between who’s talking, but it was unintentionally hilarious. I was not alone in laughing out loud in the theater. It came off as stiff, highly unrealistic and poorly conceived. Two battling internal voices would have made more sense than seeing poor Saoirse talking to herself on screen.

Wanderer/Melanie’s assigned Seeker (Diane Kruger, Inglorious Basterds), wants the human resistance information she believes Melanie has. The film’s drama and fight is supposed to come from Seeker continuing her search for Melanie, endangering the resistance, when all other souls believe it unnecessary as humans are outnumbered a million to one. The film attempts to explain this at the end as Seeker being another rarity, like Wanderer, with a human soul co-residing inside her skull; it’s too little too late.

Grudgingly, overall Saoirse does a decently good portrayal with the smooth faced, Data-like speech of a soul. It’s the strangely southern-twanged Melanie voiceover that conveys little to no emotional meaning. Hearing the words you’ll know how the host is feeling, but you don’t always understand its supposed urgency or care. When Wanderer/Melanie get to the resistance camp that Melanie had in her memories, Wanderer meets Jeb (William Hurt, Tuck Everlasting), Jaime, Jared, Kyle (Boyd Hollbrook, Milk) and Ian (Jake Abel, Percy Jackson) as well as a bunch of other body snatcher evaders. The set design and effects of this hideout, a dormant volcano, are beautiful and conceivable, but ill-used with its expanse and the people living there. There’s no sense of community explored on screen. For all these humans to be here, we should understand some sense of history or back story. The long, nearly silent scenes shot there instead made it feel more Legends of the Fall, inside, without the storytelling.

What we are told is that it’s Jeb’s house, Jeb’s rules. Hurt as the boss, the protector of who has gathered here was mostly believable and I found Hurt and Abel to be the most capable actors of the resistance. It was a dismal failure for Irons and everyone else. Ian and Jeb are the two characters who tell us the most, their body language indicating an understanding and awareness that their little actual dialogue leaves out. I have praise for these two. For Kruger even, though I felt none of the tension and animosity her character was supposed to make me believe in. Every other character was mostly a non-entity. That’s a dismal fact to consider as it’s supposed to be the alien understanding individuality.

It would be nice to consider the core elements of The Host to have included romance, because it clearly was intended to discuss the meaning of love, and how another alien culture might perceive such a thing. It’s not possible however, as the romantic attachments shown in the film are barely, if ever explored with the sole exception of Melanie’s past with Jared. And even then, the soul understands this and interprets it correctly, yet doesn’t understand that later in the caves, when Ian has begun to have feelings for Wanderer, a tiny wiggly alien species, while Jared and Melanie still lay physical claim on one another. Additionally, watching Ian’s character go from nearly strangling Melanie to death to professing affection for her in the space of what, four days, is far-fetched at best.

The worst discrepancy of this romance and love of the humans versus the harmony and peace of the souls is when it’s revealed that Wanda knows how to remove souls, explaining they must be coaxed out of the host with love and kindness. Which begs the question, again, how does eradicating a race beget love and kindness. It doesn’t. It’s simply a means to an end for the souls.  It does, however, bring sardonic meaning to “killing with kindness.” And those who do end up caring for Wanderer (Wanda), decide that instead of ending her life to give Melanie’s back, they stick her into a dying human body. It’s clean recycling, but smacks of hypocrisy. Regardless, the message is supposed to be love is love is love, and the film will go down fighting trying to prove it.

It can be acknowledged that adapting a screenplay from a novel with such heavy inner dialogue, non-verbal reactions that people have, and attempting to tell the story from the soul’s point of view about just why humans might be so disgusted with infestation would be difficult. But acknowledgments can’t excuse the compression of such activities and failed coherency. No matter how stellar a cast is found, it cannot survive the screenplay and directing of Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show, Gattaca). Which is supremely distressing as many of his films deal with what is real versus what is perceived.

Full disclosure: I have read the entire Twilight series. I have seen every Twilight movie. This movie is not Twilight, it is upsettingly worse. Though, it does share many of the same love of alien/paranormal vs. human elements.  I also read The Host prior to seeing the movie.  It is possible had I not read The Host I would view the film differently. However, I can’t see how not reading the novel helps the basic viewer understand anything about what is really happening in the film.

The worst criticism for this movie is that I can’t even hate it, instead feeling  sorrowful for the entire film, a sort of pity that isn’t movable. It was trying to tell a meaningful, powerful story from two sets of species, falling woefully short of telling any sort of story. Except, perhaps, that alien souls have pretty little silver spaceships, a beautiful interstellar delivery system, and like to drive shiny silver things.

The score:
2 Bags of Eaten Popcorn
1 Action Fist
1 (Unintentional) Belly Laugh

Watch again? Perhaps with someone else to see their reactions. But I certainly wouldn’t pay the $10 ticket price again to do so.

 Check out our other review of The Host:

Michelle Ealey’s Review