Her father took her hunting as a way of suppressing the desire to kill in her blood, a love of her father’s. Her mother is indifferent to her, but she has been taught and infected with her mother’s femininity. Richard is indeed her kind, and he awakens her so that she can carry the gun sharply and kill him. This ending is perfect.
India, female, is 18 years old. On her 18th birthday, her father is killed in a car accident. At the same time, her uncle, whom she had never met, turns up at his funeral. This young man, handsome, mysterious. Indya sees her father in him. Indya’s mother, in turn, sees in him what her husband was like when she was young. Because of this man, a jealousy spreads between mother and daughter, getting worse and worse. Ultimately, what is revealed is a secret about a murderous family ……
No matter what the subject matter is, he never shies away from gory violence and pornographic scenes, evil and twisted against human nature are the norm. So it’s best not to watch his films from a conventional perspective. This is also true of Stoker.
As the film’s heroine, India has had an unusual upbringing. Her greatest passion is hunting. From a young age, her father took her out hunting, crouching in the wilderness for hours at a time, waiting for an opportunity to strike a deadly blow. So, she was closest to her father. Her mother, Evelyn (Nicole Kidman), is not close to her husband, nor to her daughter, and is more of an outsider in the family. The death of her favourite father is as devastating to India as you can imagine. But let’s not forget that she is a girl who loves hunting and her heart does not allow her to cry or make a fuss, instead she acts very calm and light-hearted. Her mother could do nothing about her calmness, and the relationship between mother and daughter remained nonchalant. In contrast, her uncle Richard seems to be able to see through her thoughts and feelings.
Indira is wary of this uncle, whom she has never met before. But her mother soon moved on from the loss of her husband and accepted this man into her life. All this, Indya watches with cold eyes, watching. And as she watches, she unconsciously falls into it. In showing Richard’s relationship with his mother and daughter, the film uses a prop, the piano.
For the first time, India returns from an outing and sees her mother and uncle playing the piano. The two touch hands. The bodies are embraced and intimate. After spotting Indya, the mother looks visibly horrified as if she has been caught in the act of doing something wrong. She carefully excuses herself by saying that Richard does not know how to play the piano and that she is teaching him. But, again, India is not stupid, and she can almost conclude that her uncle and her mother are not in an innocent relationship. Richard, meanwhile, acts as if he had expected this and is not at all afraid that Indya will discover his adulterous affair with his sister-in-law. For the second time, the people playing the piano became Indya and Richard. In front of his niece, Richard becomes comfortable, and his inability to play the piano becomes a great skill. As they played, the two men’s hands touched. Legs entwined. Breaths touched and India almost melted in Richard’s arms.
Unconsciously, India began to moan. She was getting a strange pleasure from the intimacy with Richard. But as the camera panned out, where was anyone else but India in front of the piano? The intimacy she had just felt was only her fantasy. In the two piano scenes, the fall of mother and daughter to Richard is visible to the naked eye. But then again, Richard’s attraction to these two is completely different. Richard and Evelyn, the relationship between brother-in-law and sister-in-law, the flirtation between adults. Richard and India, the relationship between uncle and niece, where the uncle seems to have been nurturing and teaching the niece. In either relationship, this is backhanded, but is this film as simple as backhandedness? From the beginning of the film, a creepy and eerie atmosphere pervades.
The eerie camera work and soundtrack, that’s one thing. But more important is the person of India. Her expressions and movements are eerie, she’s clearly not doing anything, but you just believe she’s going to do something, that she’s going to find something. And sure enough, she did find something. In the freezer in the basement, she found the body of the family butler. The housekeeper had disappeared shortly after her uncle arrived at the house. It was clear that the butler’s death was hiding something and that the killer was most likely in the house. And on the very night that India finds his father’s body, Richard goes out. During the day, a relative comes to Evelyn’s house and warns her that she should not get too close to Richard. That night, Richard finished her off. One home, three people. Richard kills the man but behaves as if he were. India finds the butler’s body and still behaves as before.
Of the three, only Evelyn seems to be a normal, clueless person.
She was still reveling in her intimacy with Richard while Richard and India were immobile and in full disguise. The two were in the house, kissing as if no one was watching. She didn’t even notice that there was Indya standing just outside the window. Nor did she notice that Richard, who was kissing her passionately, had his eyes dead set on Indya. Richard was seducing India. He had deliberately let Indya see how close he was to Evelyn, to make Indya hate Evelyn and to make Indya yearn for sex. His purpose was achieved. Indya does go to the male student, and the two kiss and embrace… but when there is substantial progress, Indya refuses. The male student is so desperate that he tries to use force. At this point, Richard appears at the right time. He strangles the boy while Indya looks on, and Indya buries him under his nose. The two men strike an alliance. One killer has been exposed, the other is being raised. Yes, it is a killer in the making. The film is titled Stoker, which is India’s surname and Richard’s surname, and they share a killing gene in their blood. When Richard was a boy, he buried his brother alive. For all these years, he stayed in a convalescent hospital.
Alone, he wanted to find his own kind, and so he set his sights on his young niece, India. The family housekeeper was his eyes and ears and kept him informed about India for a long time. And he sends her letters and shoes every year on her birthday. On India’s 18th birthday, he finally leaves the sanatorium, but is told by his brother that he cannot go to his house. Not to go to his brother’s house and not see Indya? How was this possible. Richard’s heart was set on Indya, and he wanted to nurture and mould a kindred spirit exactly like himself. If his brother gets in his way, then he will kill him. This leads to the scene in the film where Indya’s father dies and an uncle he has never met enters the house.
Richard’s plan is perfect. He knows that Indya has the same yearning to kill in her blood as he does, so step by step he is awakening her. Awakening her yearning for herself. Awakening her desire to kill. And India does get a little closer to being what he wants her to be, just as he wants her to be. The most heartbreaking scene of the film occurs at the end of the film. The final step in Richard’s grooming of Indya is to lead her to kill her own mother. One minute, Richard is having a fling with Evelyn. The next, he is strangling her and shouting for Indya. From start to finish, Evelyn was just a tool for him to use. By now, all India had to do was kill Evelyn, and that would prove that his plan had worked. He smiled when India appeared carrying a shotgun. He was certain that his plan to guide him was a success. But in the end, it is Richard that India kills and his own mother that he saves. I quite liked the ending.
Because if Indya did become the next Richard, it would prove at best a triumph of genetics. But in addition to the killing gene that India comes with, she has the bond of years spent with her parents. Her father took her hunting as a way of suppressing the desire to kill that was in her blood; it was her father’s love. Her mother was indifferent to her, but she had learned by ear and infected her with her mother’s femininity. Richard is indeed her kind, and he awakens her so that she can carry the gun sharply and kill him. The ending is perfect.
