To fully understand the meaning of the film A Cure for Wellness, you need to remember the plot of the film. At the center of the story is a young employee of a large company, Lockhart, who is blackmailed into going in search of an executive who is recuperating in a sanatorium in the Alps.
Arriving at the place, Lockhard fails to meet with the boss, as this is prevented by the director of the hospital, Heinrich Volmgren. Wanting to go to the police, the main character leaves the wellness center in order to wake up later in it, but with a plastered leg. The staff informs Lockhart that he has been in an accident and is now forced to stay in a treatment center to repair the injured limb.
Soon, many oddities are discovered surrounding both the employees of the medical institution and the place itself. According to one of the patients, the sanatorium was built on the ruins of a burned castle that belonged to a “strange” baron. He entered into marriage with his sister, as he passionately desired a child of pure aristocratic blood. However, his wife turned out to be barren, which forced the baron to start sadistic experiments on the peasants. Despite the fact that his bullying led to a positive result (the wife became pregnant), the child did not have time to be born, as the peasants rebelled, cut the baby out of the womb and threw it into the aquifer, and set fire to the castle itself. According to legend, the baron and his wife died in the fire, but the child survived.
During one of the treatment procedures, the main character meets an unusual girl named Hannah. She keeps aloof, but still Lockhart manages to make friends with her. Hanna, like Principal Volmgren, constantly carries a strange blue bottle with an unknown liquid.
Tormented by thoughts of his father’s suicide, the protagonist explores the wellness center and learns that one wing of the building is a site of terrifying experiments. The fact is that due to the healing properties of water, eels living in local underground sources can produce an elixir that prolongs youth. But for this they need to be passed through the human body. This was done by the staff of the sanatorium, led by Heinrich Folgren, who turned out to be a surviving baron who wore a mask that hid burns. He, like Hannah (his daughter), took the “elixir of youth.”
At the same time, the girl has her first menstruation, which Heinrich has been waiting for so long. He did not give up on the idea of a full-blooded heir, so he raised Hannah in the hope that she would bear him a child.
In honor of this significant event, Folgren arranges a ball. Then Lockhart discovers that his leg is intact. He runs to a secret room to save a girl from being raped and sets fire to the treatment center along the way. As a result, by hitting her father on the head, it is Hannah who saves the protagonist, and not vice versa.
The film ends with a scene of Hannah and Lockhart leaving on a bicycle.
The meaning of the film A Cure for Wellness
The meaning of the film A Cure for Wellness can be sought in two planes: literal and symbolic. If we talk about the literal perception of the picture, then we will see a dark horror film with elements of fantasy, thriller and detective.
On the symbolic plane, however, a completely different message becomes apparent. A Cure for Wellness is a metaphorical tape that reflects the values of the modern consumer society.
The main character of the picture, Lockhart, is a workaholic. He follows in the footsteps of his father, who could not stand the load at work and committed suicide (jumped off a bridge). As for the mother, not being able to take care of her, the protagonist takes the woman to a nursing home. There, his mother paints ballerinas for music boxes. Soon the woman dies, leaving the figurine to Lockhard as a memory of herself. In general, the ballerinas in the film symbolize freedom and spiritual lightness.
Serious stress becomes a constant companion of the protagonist. Even on the train, on the way to the Alps, he cannot breathe and is busy with work matters.
Later we learn that the director of the wellness center, aka the mad baron, Heinrich Volmgren uses his patients as a source of “youth elixir”. He plants parasitic fish in their bodies, which gradually deplete and kill a person. From the body of the victims, the doctor and his henchmen receive valuable drops of a liquid that prolongs youth. This is a mirror image of the situation that has developed in the modern world: a small percentage of people endowed with money and power use the rest of society for their own benefit.
In pursuit of material goods and the opportunity to prolong life, a person, without noticing it, becomes a cog in a giant machine. For the sake of ever-increasing needs and desires, he works non-stop to be able to consume more and more. Ultimately, a person prolongs life not for himself, but for this very handful of influential people who are at the helm.
The title of the painting “Health Cure” can be regarded as a fairly accurate oxymoron that conveys the main idea. The lives of individual people are only droplets that saturate capitalist society and support its existence.
It is no coincidence that eels were chosen as parasitic fish. They are slippery and dodgy. They wrap around a person, depriving him of freedom of action. As you know, eels live in water, and without water, human existence is impossible. By this, the director emphasizes how deeply the parasitic society has penetrated the very essence of man.
It is worth noting that the patients of the clinic voluntarily accepted procedures that sucked the vitality out of them. Which is not surprising, because it is much easier to believe Volmgren’s mythical diagnoses than to look for a problem in your lifestyle. Here one can draw a parallel with modern media, which present information in a light that is beneficial only to a small number of power-hungry people.
The meaning of the ending of the film A Cure for Wellness
At the end of the film, we see the result of Lockhart’s throwing – he breaks out of the vicious circle, setting fire to the building of the hospital. Together with Hannah, they escape from terrible experiments and terrible secrets. It seemed like a positive ending. But Lockhart’s mad smile hints that the story is most likely not over.
Write in the comments your meaning of the movie A Cure for Wellness. We look forward to waiting!
