A nurse is called to an old mansion in Italy to aid a boy who stopped talking after his mother died.
As they say, you can make a bad film from a good script, but you can never make a good film from a bad script. Even though I won’t claim that the script is bad, I will claim that its flow is substantially problematic. From what I read, the script’s development was stuck for years, and Verena’s role passed from Maggie Gyllenhaal to Olga Kurylenko to, eventually, Emilia Clarke. As you can see, if the script solely relies on beauty to evoke the desired feelings, it is doomed to fail. Emilia Clarke, besides her striking beauty, is a fine actress. However, her character is flat, and she cannot save it despite her decent efforts. Unfortunately, the same applies to everyone else involved.
Speaking of flat, that’s what the story is, too. Nothing’s happening for the most part, no matter how hard you want to. Michael Wandmacher’s beautifully composed suspenseful music accompanies a narrative that is anything but. While rendered mostly monotone, Peter Simonite’s haunting photography offers a cold, foggy and mysterious atmosphere throughout most of the film, cautiously ‘warming’ it when the narrative dictates. Be it as it may, chances are that Eric D. Howell’s film let you down, unfortunately. It is a shame, really, as adopting European filmmaking standards and neglecting the influences from overseas provides excellent potential.
As much as I enjoy watching Clarke naked – every time – I believe that she needs to have a word with her manager about how many films she is going to appear nude. I repeat I am not complaining, but she may need to reconsider for her career’s sake. Films like Voice from the Stone are, as aforementioned, doomed to fail as their target audience is unspecified, and so are their appealing criteria. Hence, projects like this keep changing hands over the years and end up like a creative purée where everyone has stuck their fingers.
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