Asylum spends all of its time on the soap-opera hijinks between sultry Stella and her hunky-psycho lover Edgar, and almost none on elaborating on what's really happening behind the scenes. We're given reels of the lovers meeting and making love all over the asylum grounds; they appear to be able to find privacy just about anywhere even though the place is patrolled by a small army of alert guards and matrons. Their affair stays a murky rumor, when by all rights it should be discovered by plenty of people with every reason to bring it fully to light.

A capable cast enlivens the triangle (or rectangle) of sexual intrigue but cannot make it seem different from countless soapy tales that have gone before. Busy hubby Hugh Bonneville is a cold fish, so the hot-blooded Stella has no choice but to be groped and squeezed by her (usually filthy) looney lover Edgar. They get down to business in the dirt or on the floor of a greenhouse being renovated, but Stella's white skirt is always clean when the sex is done. By the time little Charlie is spilling the beans about what Mummy and Edgar are doing, we're more interested in Ian McKellen's connivances, which Asylum keeps frustratingly obscure. His Dr. Cleave is well aware of the mutual interest between his pet patient and his competitor's oversexed wife, yet his only response is to encourage Edgar and invite Stella in to talk about 'her problem,' all in confidence, of course.

The story eventually refuses to commit to the fact that Cleave is pulling the puppet strings behind everything that happens. Edgar mocks Cleave as a 'queen' who really wants Edgar's love, but Cleave's grand scheme appears to peak at winning his competitor's top asylum job and bedding his wife. Cleave's final attempt to manipulate both Edgar and Stella into his complete control backfires, making Asylum seem as if it is unwilling to go all the way and become a Cabinet of Caligari- like horror show. Madmen are in charge of the loonies! Surprise, surprise.

The final reels of Asylum are a chaotic jumble lurching from one unpleasant tragedy to the next. Natasha Richardson is so forceful as Stella that we have a hard time believing she could be held in thrall by sexual obsession. Thus we feel little sympathy for her when she abandons her son. Later, when she goes nuts and various innocent characters begin to suffer, we simply don't follow. Unless Asylum is a victim of editorial butchery, the fault seems to lie with a script that doesn't connect the emotional dots. Asylum takes on echoes of Leave Her to Heaven and any number of more memorable tragedies where fallen women eventually destroy themselves out of runaway passions.

Paramount's DVD of Asylum is a stunning enhanced transfer with excellent 5.1 audio; Giles Nuttgens' atmospheric cinematography keeps the interest level high even as we're becoming frustrated with the story. There are no extras. The "Paramount Classics" logo on the attractively-designed disc box puts this picture among the seemingly hundreds of studio "releases" that disappear into straight-to-video limbo.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Asylum rates:
Movie: Good -
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: none
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: January 30, 2006