Based on the real story of Colleen Stan who in 1977 was abducted by Cameron and Janice Hooker in California while hitchhiking to a friend's birthday, the movie explores the intense and shocking reality of those years in the life of Colleen.
Girl in the Box doesn't waste any time and from the beginning we are thrown into the story following a young couple riding in their truck. We're already aware this is not a normal couple, and when they stop for Colleen to give her a ride, an uncanny foreboding starts to shape before us. The film is compelling not only because it is based on real events but also because of the horrific nature of it all and how well it portrays the events that took place in those seven years. Seven years that were hell on earth considering the lengths the Hookers put young Colleen through. She was totally humiliated, debased, and abused while treated as a slave. These are the types of scars that, unlike physical ones, never heal. The performances were convincing all the time; Addison Timlin successfully conveys the psychological distress her character went through, the manipulation that took place, and how she, understandably, reacted after so much time deprived of her freedom. Zane Holtz successfully embodies the depravity, while Zelda Williams accurately portrays her character's evolution from fear to jealousy to guilt.
Stephen Kemp's Girl in the Box not only delves into themes of kidnapping and trauma, but also faith and patriarchal structures and how they can serve as a vehicle to realize the darkest of desires. The box is clearly the reification of traditional gender roles, a symbol of that macrocosm reality where "master" and "slave" signify not bondage codification but its immanent gender dynamics. This is precisely what philosophers describe as the risks of belief when they are not subjected to necessary scrutiny. Ultimately, the pessimism of the story is how we, as human beings, as subjects, cease to be in order to be looked as objects when under the gaze of others. A reminder that you cannot trust strangers, no matter how trustful they may look.
