Anti-capitalist symbolism is expressed in the film “A Cure for Wellness.” The movie is a psychological horror picture that proposes that worship of money and material success, kills a human being. At the beginning of the film, an employee dies of a heart attack at work in a substantial financial corporation. Besides, the film title appears against the background of dozens of computers in the corporation working monitors while the dead man lies on the floor.
A young, ambitious employee goes to a wellness center lost in the Swiss Alps to bring back his company’s head. In a mountain sanatorium, time seemed to have stopped; the sanatorium director is an aristocrat living for 300 years (“Plot Summary of A Cure for Wellness”). He is a mad scientist who has developed a way to prolong life at the expense of purified water, while the human body acts as a filter (A Cure for Wellness). The film’s idea is that capitalism is the cure for health, being a severe disease that makes people suffer without knowing it. Their lives are consumed by those at the top who have gained power by deceiving and fooling people. The essence of life is used only by the baron and his entourage, for example, the corrupted police chief (“Plot Summary of A Cure for Wellness”). It is a symbolic depiction of the social order under capitalism.
Capitalism might become a disease, and when it escalates to the limit, a person will finally begin to look for a cure for it. In the end, the main character is asked whether he is out of his mind, and he replies that he feels much better. It is understandable that the healing process has begun, and the man has received his medicine from capitalism.
Works Cited
A Cure for Wellness. Directed by Gore Verbinski, performance by Dane DeHaan, Twentieth Century Fox, 2017.
“Plot Summary of A Cure for Wellness.” IMDb, 2020. Web.