***SPOILERS***

18 year old India's (Mia Wasikowska) father has recently died in a car crash, so her strange behavior doesn't really bother you at first; afterall, she is in mourning. She hears voices and doesn't like to be touched, and also wears odd clothing and saddle shoes.  

Suddenly, her dad's long-lost brother Charlie (Matthew Goode) ...who neither India or her mother (Nicole Kidman) have strangely ever met... appears at the funeral and ends up staying with the women for awhile. That's when things start to get even weirder (and you'd think watching this film that that wouldn't be possible).

People start disappearing, like the housekeeper and an out of town aunt who comes for a visit, even a high school boy who India takes an interest in for a few minutes goes missing.  India discovers that she has some things in common with her uncle Charlie, that becomes obvious as the plot drags on. I say "drags" because it seems to take forever to get from one scene to another. I kept wondering, "who is the target audience for this movie, it can't be kids, they lean toward slasher films and adults will think it's far to dark."

Nicole Kidman has made some strange choices when it comes to movie roles over the years. The other day I heard her say in an interview that she has her husband Keith Urban look over scripts with her now and they decide together which roles she should take. It's hard to imagine that two people would have said yes to this but then again Keith is just learning about the movie business. You might argue that a film student could get something redemptive out of Stoker because maybe from an artistic standpoint you might learn something, but otherwise my suggestion is to stay far away. Life gives us enough things to be unsettled by, why add to the list?

Click here for synopsis and show times near you.